7. A Heroic Feat in the Face of Death
The recently arrived women who were first to undress in the Auschwitz showers were hurried into the gas chamber. However, Franceska Mann hesitated to disrobe. That was when a group of irritated SS camp guards entered the room, and ordered her and the other women who had not yet undressed to hurry up. Mann refused, and in that instance, became a one-woman resistance cell. Until then, she had not been a member of any resistance group. However, in a split second, a few feet from a gas chamber, she decided to stand up and defy her oppressors.
In the most popular version of Franceska Mann’s heroic feat – although it is a version that has never been verified – she reportedly performed a striptease for the SS guards. As they ogled the beauty before them, they let their guard down. That was when Mann struck. Whether she had or had not performed a striptease, what is known is that she took off a high heel shoe, and used its heel to stab an SS guard named Walter Quakernack in the face.
