Terra Nostra: The Auschwitz Uprising

by zorkmidden. This is the featured weekly post from Discarded Lies at Winds of Change.NET. The Terra Nostra series is about the Jewish Holocaust in Greece, righteous gentiles, tales of heroism and simple human will to survive, and the beauty of human souls even in a horrific tableau. It's also about contemporary Greek attitudes to Jews, Judaism, and Israel. Other posts in the Terra Nostra series on Winds of Change include Reina Gilberta, Liliane Fernandes, Loving God and Hating Jews, The Exodus From Spain, The Occupation, The Deportations, 'We were from a different level', Athens, Rabbi Barzilai, Rabbi Koretz, The Passover Trap, The Mainland and The Islands

There hasn't been a lot written about the Greek Jews in Auschwitz. From the little we know, they were noted for helping each other, "their hatred of violence, their trying to keep their dignity, made the Greeks the most compact ethnic group in the camp and therefore the most civilized" wrote Primo Levi in "Survival in Auschwitz." But they also participated in acts of heroism and resistance.

In September 1944, Alberto Herrera de Larissa, a Greek Jew and officer in the Greek army, escaped after hitting the German guards with a shovel. He was captured and died after being tortured.

In June 1944, a group of 100 Jews from Corfu, newly arrived in Auschwitz, were ordered to work in the Sonderkommando unit. They refused and were shot immediately.

But the most significant act of resistance of the Greek Jews who worked in special work detail was the uprise they organised with other Polish prisoners.

The Sonderkommando unit at Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted of teams of prisoners who were responsible for emptying the gas chambers after the gassings, transporting the bodies to the crematoria, and loading the dead (and sometimes not completely dead) in the ovens. Then they would scatter the ashes on the barracks paths and the nearby ponds. They were kept in special barracks, away from the other prisoners and were replaced by new prisoners every six months. The previous Sonderkommando prisoners were gassed.

According to the commonly accepted conventional wisdom, no Sonderkommandos survived, since they were usually sent to the gas chambers after a few months on the job. Many historians have accepted this opinion as fact. However, as Greif's book proves, some 100 Sonderkommandos emerged alive from the death camp following its liberation by the Red Army; of these approximately 30 are still alive in various countries. Sonderkommando, Auschwitz

In the fall of 1944, the Sonderkommando unit at Auschwitz staged a revolt. One hundred and thirty five Salonica Jews were part of this uprising.

That day the word spread about a transport of men and men of the Sonderkommando. Just a few minutes later and six hundred of the men of the Sonderkommando rebelled. Crematorium 2 went up in flames and the German Kapo, who excelled in cruelty, was thrown into the burning oven. In a battle at close quarters four SS men were killed and several others were wounded. The area surrounding the crematorium turned into a battlefield. The barrier around the area was destroyed and the rebels escaped. All of the SS in the area were summoned to the camp. The work gangs stopped their labors and were returned to their blocks. A count of the prisoners was made. The SS men ran around the camp like poisoned rats. This was something they had not expected nor had it ever occurred to them that they would have to defend themselves against Jews. Oswiecim, Poland

Almost all of them were captured and killed as were the women who helped them sneak in munitions from the factory. The least we can do is tell their story again and again, hoping to forever extinguish the myth of Jews going to their deaths unprotesting.