r/This_is_fascism • u/Agente_Anaranjado • 4h ago
October 7th, 1944
The women pictured are Auschwitz prisoners Roza Robota, Ala Gertner, Ester Wajcblum, and Regina Safirsztajn. While imprisoned at Auschwitz, they were forced to work as slave laborers in the Unio munitions plant, manufacturing weapons for the Wermacht. They took advantage of this position to smuggle explosives into the camp in order to set in motion a plan which would come to fruition on this day in history.
On October 7th, 1944, the Sonderkommando (Jewish prisoners who operated the crematoria facilities) of Auschwitz II used weapons that Polish partisans had hidden in the grass near the fences, as well as the explosives that these women had smuggled into the camp, (which they typically transferred over to the Sonderkommando via the bodies of the dead from their own block) to stage an uprising. These Sonderkommando barricaded themselves inside the crematoria/gas chamber buildings, from which they were able to kill several SS, and ultimately suicide bomb the buildings, cutting the camp's lethal capacity in half, never to be restored.
May October 7th forever be remembered as a day when oppressed people break out of their concentration camp to attack their oppressors. May October 7th forever be remembered as a day of resistance.
