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Women of Peace and Those Sided the Wrong of World War II

Khalid Elhassan November 20, 2020 32 min

World War II - Italian resistance movement — Women of the resistance in Italy. Wall Street Journal

32. The Women Who Volunteered to Help With a Death Camp Revolt

ester wajcblum — Ester Wajcblum, one of the women who participated in the 1944 Auschwitz Sonderkommando Revolt. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Until they were eventually liquidated, the Sonderkommando were employed in a variety of ghoulish tasks. They had little choice other than do as they were told, or face immediate execution. They guided new arrivals to the gas chambers, removed their bodies afterward, shaved their hair for use as felt, pulled out their gold teeth, went through their possessions, cremated the corpses, and disposed of the ashes.

In the fall of 1944, as the time of their liquidation drew near, the men of Auschwitz’s 12^th Sonderkommando decided against going quietly to their deaths. Instead, they planned to launch a revolt, destroy the gas chambers, and blow up the crematoria. So they turned to the women of the neighboring camp for help. They found volunteers eager to assist in striking back against their Nazi oppressors.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.