Resistance (22 page)

In Auschwitz, Pilecki began by organizing a resistance movement, identified as the Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej, or “Union of Armed Struggle” (ZWZ).
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He also set out to improve the lives of the Polish prisoners by smuggling extra food and medical supplies into the camp. Simultaneously, he succeeded in supplying information about life in Auschwitz to the underground in Poland and to the Allies abroad.

In one of the 1942 transports, two additional Polish underground figures arrived: Jozef Cyrankiewicz, a socialist, and Tadeusz Holuj, who identified himself unofficially as a communist.
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Additional arrivals of new prisoners, some of whom had underground connections, created new opportunities for cooperation among a variety of groups, Polish and non-Polish. Nevertheless, true to their national traditions, the Polish underground members identified themselves with a variety of political parties.
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Whether a resistance group was eager to cooperate with others depended, in part, on the group's self-image. Those perceived as weak were naturally more dependent on help from the more powerful groups. For small groups, cooperation often translated into mutual help and an increase in power. Added to the diverse Polish underground groups in Auschwitz were two new small resistance groups: Czech and Austrian. Each of these wanted to cooperate with other resistance units. In contrast, other underground movements refused to have any contact with specific resistance groups. This was true of the German political prisoners, who refused to cooperate with any Polish and/or Jewish resisters. This was unusual because these German political prisoners identified themselves as communists or socialists and thus were naturally philosophically aligned with these other groups.
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In their case, racial and ethnic prejudices overshadowed any shared political ideologies.

Needless to say, there were variations in how effective cooperation was for whom and under what circumstances. Poles were generally more likely to help Poles. Their shared nationality, however, did not always act as a unifier. Nationality was sometimes trumped by political ideology. Political and humane considerations could and did lead to mixed results. The political prisoner Hermann Langbein, an Austrian communist, had a mixed record. At certain moments he would devote himself to camp improvements that affected the fate of the entire prisoner population. On the other hand, he often made special efforts on behalf of his communist comrades at the expense of prisoners who belonged to other political groups.

In assessing the plight of Jewish prisoners, most Holocaust scholars agree with Langbein that “Jewish concentration camp inmates had the hardest, most murderous jobs, the worst food, and that they were confronted by the most horrendous living circumstances. Inevitably then, Jewish inmates were least equipped to stand up to their German oppressors.”
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Such conclusions further suggest that
only a tiny minority of Jewish prisoners was ever in a position to attempt resistance.

Nevertheless, the history of the Auschwitz/Birkenau camps also points to the existence of several Jewish resistance groups, and their story underscores cooperative underground contacts between Jewish and non-Jewish resistance movements. Naturally, the German SS determined who was sent to what kind of camps at what time. Time of arrival, ethnic identification, and the size of the group affected the establishments of resistance groups. One 1942 transport to Auschwitz became the nucleus for the first and subsequent Jewish resistance groups. These arrivals included several Jewish young people from the Polish city Ciechanow. Most of them belonged to the leftist Zionist organization Hashomer Hatzair. Among them some of the recognizable names were Mordechai Bielanowicz (later known as Hilleli), Roza Robota (
figure 4.1
), Noah Zabludowicz, and Yakov Kaminski.

Around that time, too, the SS created a new and large group of Jewish laborers. Identified as Sonderkommandos, or Kommandos, they were a part of a group that had to perform the most gruesome tasks. These new duties were a byproduct of a diabolic German invention: the gassing and burning of Jewish victims. The Kommandos emerged in 1942, when gassing and disposing of bodies became systemic. It coincided with Yakov Kaminski's arrival, as a part of the Ciechanow group. It was, indeed, Yakov's misfortune to be appointed head of the Sonderkommando in crematorium IV, in Birkenau. Forced to take on this horrendous job, Yakov began to organize a Jewish resistance group, which expanded to incorporate workers from Birkenau crematoria II, III, IV, and V.

FIGURE 4.1
Members of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist youth movement in Ciechanow on an outing in the woods, circa 1933. Among those pictured is Roza Robota (top row, left). (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Eliyahu Mallenbaum)

Only Jewish male prisoners were selected for the Kommando jobs. These men had to remove bodies from the gas chambers and burn them, either in fire pits or in ovens, which were a part of the crematoria complex. The SS were responsible for the selection of these Jewish men, as well as for their supervision. In time the Kommando inmates included Jews from a variety of European countries. These special squads lived in quarters close to the crematorium in which they worked. They were better fed than most other Jewish inmates, but isolated from the rest of the population. They were closely watched and severely punished for the slightest transgressions.

The SS kept them at their jobs for a limited and, purposely, unspecified period of time. The SS officers would decide when to retire a group of these laborers. Retirement in Auschwitz meant that they would be gassed. Kommandos who were still working were forced to burn the bodies of their comrades. The Kommando members knew that at any moment, unexpectedly and in the relatively near future, they too would be gassed and their bodies would be cremated.

Although the SS were obsessed with keeping these Kommando laborers separated from the rest of the prison population, they never succeeded in isolating them entirely. Under Kaminski's leadership, the Kommando underground groups managed to establish and maintain contacts not only with the rest of the crematoria but also with a variety of resistance groups.

By 1943, some underground groups became focused on the idea of a general rebellion in Auschwitz/Birkenau. The goal of this large uprising was to destroy the entire compound and at the same time save as many inmates as possible. The supporters of this revolt called themselves the Auschwitz
Kampfgruppe
(Struggle Group). In charge of this movement were communists, socialists, and groups from a range of other leftist parties. The
Kampfgruppe
aimed at
including resisters with varying political ideologies. They argued that membership in this broad organization should not be based on size or strength. While these ideals were agreed upon in principle, they were not easily implemented. The actual planning for this revolt was still not complete as 1943 was coming to an end.
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The initiator and leader of the
Kampfgruppe
was the Polish socialist Jozef Cyrankiewicz. He argued that in principle those who were a part of this movement “were ready to fight for their freedom and that they shared a common respect for the right to life of every other nation, whether small or the smallest, whether the most defenseless—simply put, people and mankind.”
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Talks between the
Kampfgruppe
and those who represented the AK were set in motion. But the AK, as the biggest and best-run Polish underground, expected the
Kampfgruppe
to play a subordinate role in this large-scale uprising. During the ensuing discussions between the
Kampfgruppe
and the AK, as represented by Cyrankiewicz and Pilecki, the issue of power-sharing became the basic stumbling block. In the end, no agreement could be reached.
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In part, this deadlock probably convinced Pilecki that for the uprising in Auschwitz/Birkenau to be successful the AK would need help from the outside. To accomplish this, Pilecki arranged to escape from the camp, which he did—fleeing from an offsite camp bakery where he had received a night shift work detail. On the outside, at AK headquarters in Krakow, Pilecki reviewed the internal circumstances of the Auschwitz/Birkenau camps with his superiors. He tried to persuade them that with AK's outside support an overall camp uprising could be successful. But Pilecki's arguments fell on deaf ears. His superiors emphasized AK's lack of resources to pull off such a rebellion. They argued that according to their information there were an estimated 46,000 sick men and 10,000 sick women in Auschwitz and Birkenau. To parachute into the camp was out of the question. Involvement by the AK could succeed only within the context of a disintegrating German occupation. The unilateral conclusion of the AK Headquarters was such that at this point in the war—this was still early in 1943—such broad efforts would inevitably end in catastrophe.
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Disappointed, Pilecki had no recourse. He accepted the decision of his superiors, even though it had inflicted a heavy blow to his sense of altruism and to his profound sense of mission.
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This meeting, in effect, terminated Pilecki's direct involvement with the Auschwitz concentration camp.

After steady involvement with the underground in Poland, he moved to Italy, but longed to return and in 1945, he did. This was a time when Polish patriotism was looked upon with suspicion by the USSR, which was in virtual control of the country. Upon his return to Poland, Pilecki was arrested on charges of treason and illegal transmissions of secrets to the Polish government-in-exile in London. He was executed in 1948. Neither the exact date nor the exact place of his execution were ever revealed. At that time, Jozef Cyrankiewicz, the former comrade and close associate of Pilecki in the Auschwitz underground, was the Prime Minister of Poland.
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As the Auschwitz/Birkenau camps continued to expand, additional transports kept arriving from other European countries. Inevitably, some of these new inmates were eager to join Jewish resistance groups. Among these youths were Moshe Kulka and Yehuda Laufer, both Slovakian Jews. The arrival of Israel Gutman, a Polish Jew from Warsaw, was a valuable addition to the prisoners. All three youths arrived in Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1943. An enlarged membership modified the activities and the organization of these Jewish resistance groups. What remained constant was the overall willingness by these Jewish youths to cooperate with both Jewish and non-Jewish resisters. Their illegal undertakings were guided by equally keen awareness that a resistance organization required a balance between secrecy and coordination.

Both the timing of these arrivals and the particular jobs which these prisoners were assigned led to some unusual alliances. Two rather unlikely Jewish comrades were Gutman from Warsaw and Laufer from Slovakia. Gutman, now a prominent Holocaust scholar, was a former underground Warsaw ghetto fighter who had lost an eye during the uprising. He was first sent to Majdanek and then to Auschwitz. He shrewdly avoided sharing the true circumstances surrounding the loss of his eye, explaining to the German authorities that it was the result of an accident on the job. The truth about Gutman's missing eye would have ended his life. Anyone known to the SS as having been in any way a leader was generally swiftly gassed. Despite his disability, this former rebel retained an eagerness to stand up to the Germans. After his arrival in Auschwitz, he searched for underground connections.
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Gutman soon met Laufer, an Orthodox Jew and former Yeshiva student from Slovakia. In contrast, Gutman was a committed member of Hashomer Hatzair.
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These two individuals were very different yet they shared a determination to fight the Germans however they could. Both of them joined the Ciechanow Jewish resistance group.

In Auschwitz/Birkenau, rumors continued to circulate that the Auschwitz
Kampfgruppe
and the AK were planning a campwide uprising, which would include many of the existent underground groups in the camp. In part a pipedream, this broad, illegal undertaking was still at its initial stages. Under the leadership of Cyrankiewicz, this all-encompassing resistance movement set in motion a range of special preparations. Bruno Baum, a half-Jew and a communist, acted as a link between the
Kampfgruppe
and some of the Jewish resistance groups. Jewish resisters were eager to participate in a general uprising. Some of them had access to the gunpowder factory. They were ready to take on whatever risks were necessary for the revolt.

Jewish prisoners were “employed” in various parts of the Union factory. Of special interest to the underground was the part of the munitions factory that was involved in the final stages of the gunpowder manufacturing process.
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The Jewish women who worked in this part of the factory were closely monitored and forbidden to have any contact with their coworkers, especially with men.
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These restrictions did not prevent such employees from agreeing to supply their underground with gunpowder, however. Two Jewish female prisoners, Hadassah Tolman-Zlotnicki and Lusia Ferstenberg, arranged the transfers.
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Several Jewish women laborers would steal small quantities of gunpowder by putting some of the gunpowder into tiny bags, which they then placed into several carefully selected places. Next, working as a team, Gutman and Laufer were responsible for picking up these powder bags and for transferring them out of the factory. There was never any direct contact between the women and these two men.
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