30. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando Revolt
On the morning of October 7th, 1944, the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz’s Crematorium IV were warned that orders had been issued for their liquidation. During a roll call, a prisoner calmly walked up to a Nazi officer, shouted “Hurrah!“, and smashed his head with a hammer. The revolt was on, and in the ensuing chaos, the camp’s guards were attacked on all sides by prisoners wielding knives, hammers, clubs, and throwing explosives. One particularly brutal guard was seized and thrown alive into a crematorium.
As the guards opened fire with machine guns, some prisoners cut through the barbed wire and fled into the surrounding woods. It was a brief taste of revenge for those marked for death, who chose to die fighting while taking as many of their oppressors with them as possible. At least three guards were killed, and about a dozen were injured. Inevitably, the Germans rushed in reinforcements and suppressed the revolt with overwhelming firepower. In a final act of defiance, Crematoria IV’s Sonderkommando retreated into the building and set off their explosives, killing themselves while wrecking the crematorium.
