Sometimes it’s the hardest, darkest things in life that can show us the light.

I should know. I grew up in German-occupied Poland for most of my life, and until I was in my early twenties, all I knew was darkness and evil. I had given up on bravery and courage. I had given up on God.

One of the greatest figures of my religion, Judaism, was Joshua, who led the Israelites after Moses died thousands of years ago. Joshua commanded the Israelites to be strong, have courage, and remember that God was with them wherever they went. I grew up with this verse in my home and knew what it meant, but secretly I had doubts. When Joshua told the Israelites this, they were free men, rescued from the tyrannous grip of the Pharaoh.

In my day, we Jews were captive again, trapped under the hand of the tyrannous Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Regime. I believed God had abandoned us long ago, and that the Messiah would never come for us. I believed we had been forgotten, and now there was no reason to be “strong and of good courage.”

I had no clue how much would have to happen to me to convince me that there was still a reason to hope.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

Ciechanów was one of the few towns in Poland that retained charm despite the war-torn countryside, even after the Nazis erected the ghetto—the walled-in section of the city where the Jews were taken. Maybe it is because the Nazi atrocities of Warsaw were far away. Maybe because the people of our town stubbornly refused to let go of tradition. In spite of the shadow of war, that charm enveloped my whole life.

My family had lived happily in Ciechanów for generations. My Abba was born in the house I grew up in, and he and Mama married at the synagogue just down the street. I was born in 1921, my brother and sister—twins—born five years later. My earliest memory is of sitting in the synagogue reverently next to my pregnant Mama, watching in awe as Abba—his long beard swaying over his chest—read a passage of the Talmud to our congregation.

Abba, a wise man who studied the Tanakh, our holy scriptures, every night, brought us to the synagogue each week on the Sabbath. He made sure that my siblings and I were well-versed in the Tanakh’s holy words and drilled us often on what it meant.

But my faith would be tested. When the Nazis established the Ciechanów ghetto in 1940, trapping us Jews into a section of the city and left to die, it heightened my sense of their evil heartlessness… and my belief that God had truly abandoned us after all.

During the Ciechanów ghetto liquidation in 1942, a horrible nightmare swallowed me that would last for three cruel, long years. By the time I would break free from the clutches, I would forever be changed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

The morning that they emptied the ghettos, I was jarred awake by shouting out in the street.

Harsh, German shouting.

At the sound, I leapt out of bed and grabbed my shawl from the wicker chair. Throwing it around my shoulders, I ran down our skinny stairs to the front door of our home. Abba and Mama were down at the door already, peering out the window.

A troop of Nazi soldiers dressed in that ugly brown uniform with the red armbands—we called these man Brownshirts—roamed the street. The armbands had a strange black symbol that my sister said looked like a spider.

I saw the soldiers going door-to-door down the ghetto street, breaking into homes and demanding the residents to come out. A hundred people were on the street already, most of them still in their pajamas, surrounded by more armed Brownshirts.

Grasping the situation, Abba hissed, “Jia, Chaya, get upstairs, now! Hide!”

Mama grabbed my hand and we spun around, tearing off towards the skinny staircase at the end of the room, but we were too late. The front door crashed open to reveal an angry Brownshirt.

“Every occupant of zis household onto ze street—now!”

In our half-awake stupor and shock, Mama and I stopped at the deafening command, terrified, our limbs unable to move.

Leaping forward to protect us, Abba grabbed the door handle to slam it in the soldier’s face.

The soldier kicked the door to stop it from closing and shot Abba point-black in the chest. Abba gasped, clutched at his chest, then crashed to the floor, dead instantly. A blood-curdling scream of horror erupted from Mama’s throat, and two more soldiers lunged across the living room for us. I remember one soldier grabbing my arm with both of his dirty hands as I turned to run, and one more scream from Mama. The officers dragged us away, out of our home, over Abba’s dead body and out the door.

I never saw my little brother and sister again. I don’t know if they were found in our large, old house, and if they were found, where they were taken. I just don’t know.

But I do know that the next twenty-four hours were the most miserable hours of all my life.

We were pushed into the jostling crowd of other ghetto Jews, and the soldiers started shooting at us and ordering us to get into the train cars that were at the far end of the ghetto. The gates were opened, but this was not my idea of a ghetto liberation.

The soldiers crowded a hundred of us into the train cars. The cars were horrible. We could hardly breathe for the stuffiness, and we did not want to for the smell.

Oh, that smell… The horrible, suffocating stench of sweaty, dirty bodies, crowded into the train car. I tried not to breathe so I could block the smell, but that did not last long. My lungs screamed for oxygen but as soon as I unplugged my nose, the awful stench overwhelmed me.

Many of the passengers were sobbing. Some were bawling openly, others were silent, in shock. I just gripped Mama’s elbow to steady myself from the rocking of the car—and for the sake of a comforting touch—and, somehow, gritted my teeth to bear my way through this agonizing experience.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

After the long journey by train to—for us—an unknown destination, we finally arrived at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp. The train stopped and soldiers pushed open the giant doors, and we stepped out into another world.

A road with large, brick buildings on the sides opened before us. A giant black gate marked the entrance, and over the gate a metal sign declared, “Arbeit macht frei.” German for “Work sets you free.” I found myself wondering how true that was. With the kind of treatment we had experienced so far, I doubted that any of us would ever taste freedom.

The officers led us inside the gate to a large, sprawling complex with different sized buildings. Further down the road, past the big buildings, I saw something large and menacing, something that appeared to be a wooden structure of some sort, like a large frame, but I could only see a portion of it.

Soldiers forced us to line up next to the wall, and a grim-faced officer walked up and down through our lines, assessing every prisoner. I was sure by now that, yes, prisoners were exactly what we were.

Every once in a while, as he walked up and down the lines of men and women, the black-uniformed officer would reach a prisoner that interested him. He would look the man or woman over, ask a question or two, then issue a command to another soldier who followed him down the line. That soldier would then come and drag the Jew away. I watched, intensely curious yet trembling at the thought of what might happen to me if I was one of the prisoners dragged away.

Then the officer reached Mama and me. He looked at Mama first, grunted, and said, “Nein, she vill not do.” I did not know what he meant.

Then he reached me. Scrutinizing me with squinted eyes, he asked harshly, “Are you a good vorker?”

“Yes—yes, sir—” I stammered.

He made that strange command to a soldier behind him. The soldier stepped forward and grasped my elbow. I immediately jerked back, and heard Mama say, “Let my girl go!” But the soldier’s grip was too strong. He sneered and said, “She vill be valuable in the women’s labor units.”

“No! Chaya!” Mama screamed. I pulled back to yank my arm away, and Mama jumped forward to make the soldier let go, but the commanding officer smacked her across the face and said, “Get back in line, scum.”

Mama stumbled back, dazed, crying. I burst into tears and pleaded, “No, please, don’t take me away! Leave me with my mother! Please!”

The officer spat at me and waved his hand. “Take her avay, private.”

Sobbing uncontrollably, I stumbled as the soldier tore me away from Mama’s desperate pleas. I tried to look back and cry out to her, but the soldier slapped my face and pushed me away from the line, dragging me across the courtyard to a small, equally tearful group of young women at the far end of the yard, guarded by a troop of soldiers.

Mama’s desperate crying was the last thing I heard. And I never saw her again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

I was not the only one with this fate. The soldiers took that group of women and me to the barracks and placed us in a bunk-house, which I learned later was for women who would work in the labor units of the camp. Our long bunk-house had rows of wooden cots on the walls, with threadbare blankets and some flea-infested things they called “mattresses.”

I found an unoccupied bunk on the wall and sat down on it, my mind reeling, my heart shattered and absorbed in the hatred I felt.

“Chaya?”

I looked up at the familiar voice to see… none other than my dear friend Róża Robota! She had been taken as well when the ghetto was emptied!

Róża and her family had gone to the same synagogue in Ciechanów that we had. Back in the days of peace, she and I would often spend our afternoons together, and wherever we went I was always a little bit awed to see the way she treated people around us. You see, I always had hate in my heart against the Nazis and how they treated our people. But Róża was different. We were only 19 years old when the ghetto was built, and I was always fearful of the soldiers, but she spurned any fear of their evil in her heart. Rather than hate the cruel Nazis, like I did, she pitied them. I never understood that. To her, the Nazis deserved pity. For me, they deserved only hate.

But Róża was my best friend. I respected her compassion towards them, and the fact that she was here as well was comforting—more than she knew.

From then on, we always stayed together. She took the bunk next to mine, and we were with each other every day.

Along with all the other female prisoners, we had our heads shaved and a number tattooed on our forearm. Then we were assigned to labor command units, and both Róża and I worked in the same one—the clothing department. Our job was to sort through the clothing of the other Jews who had been taken. We received striped garments to wear, as well, and our clothes had to be processed by the unit, too.

A month later, I started hearing some rumors about a woman who was killed in the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke munitions factory, where prisoners built weapons. I heard mixed rumors about the ordeal. Some said the woman was shot, others said it was a munitions accident that killed her. Either way, we soon learned that they needed a replacement.

They took me.

And when I was led to the Metallwerke to be registered, I caught a glimpse of that menacing, wooden structure I had seen when we arrived. It was a set of gallows.

I had not realized that the Nazis actually hung prisoners. I was under the impression that they were shot or sent to the gas chambers. But then I heard someone say something about how when someone did something that really angered the Nazis, a hanging was their preferred method of execution.

And they would not hesitate to use it for the worst of situations.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

The Union-Metallwerke was large, and inside was a section called the Pulveramm. This was the section of the factory that handled the gunpowder and made weapons for the army. It was strongly guarded, being the only place where prisoners could access weaponry.

The first lady I met there was the Pulveramm supervisor, a quiet, sensible woman named Regina Safirsztain. The first two women I was assigned to work with were sisters, ages 20 and 15. Their names were Ester and Hana Wajcblum, and Ester had the kind of personality that made a strange, dark place like Auschwitz not quite so strange and dark.

Regina and the Wajcblum sisters were a comforting group of friends to have. We all worked day-shift in the Pulveramm, and having a friend with you all day as you worked helped make the job easier.

I soon found out that Regina, Ester, and Hana slept in the barracks next to the one Róża and I slept in, and every night the women would stay up late in one corner of the low building and talk, along with a half-dozen other women. They invited Róża and I to join them, and that group of women would end up being my best friends.

Róża and I spent every night with this group. We had one small candle we sat around, huddled under our ragged, threadbare blankets we brought with us, shoulder to shoulder, enjoying even just a bit of solace and companionship in this place.

One night, we had an interesting conversation.

Ala Gertner was a lady in her early 30s who had grown up in a prosperous family before the invasion. She was a handsome woman and had married a man from the Będzin Ghetto before being brought to Auschwitz. She had friends all over the camp and had learned something intriguing.

“The Sonderkommando are preparing for a revolt,” she said.

“What! Why?” Ester asked.

“Their liquidation will be soon and they want to do something before they are killed.”

“Oh, no!” A lady named Fejga said. “I know some men in Sonderkommando 59-B.”

In my innocence, I asked, “What is the Sonderkommando?”

Ala turned to me. “The Sonderkommando are the male prisoners who escort new prisoners to gas chambers, then bring the bodies to the crematoriums. In return, they receive special privileges like better living situations and a higher chance of not being killed. However, they are often looked upon unkindly by the other prisoners.”

“Most of the other prisoners,” Regina said. “We have friends in Sonderkommando division 59-B. This current Kommando is ‘Generation 12,’ the twelfth Sonderkommando of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each Crematorium has a separate Kommando, and Kommando 59-B is with Crematorium IV.”

“Hmm,” I mused.

“But, as they know all the inner workings of the camp,” Fejga added, “they have to be killed every number of months.”

“That is horrible!”

Ala sighed. “Horrible, but true. That is why they are preparing to revolt… and why they have asked me if I want to help. No, if I can help.”

“Help them! How?” Ester asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it is our connection with the Union-Metallwerke, where most of us work. I don’t know yet.”

“Have you said yes?” I asked quietly.

Ala looked at me, her eyes shining. “Not yet. But I will.”

I had this conversation in the back of my mind for the next few days. The Sonderkommando were planning a revolt? This camp had such high security… Was it even possible to do something like that here? I hoped so, but secretly I did not completely believe it.

Then, a few nights later, the subject came up again.

“How much gunpowder do you think we could smuggle from the Union-Metallwerke if we really tried?” Hana Wajcblum asked.

“What?” a lady named Marta exclaimed. “Smuggle gunpowder?”

“Yes! We are the only prisoners with access to it, right? Well, if we smuggled a little bit of gunpowder to the Sonderkommando—”

“Yes! That is how we can help them!” Ala exclaimed. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well… Regina,” Hana turned to the lady, “you are the supervisor of the Pulveramm. Surely, we could get small bits of powder out, don’t you think?”

“I… don’t know…” Regina said. From the flickering light of the candle I saw a slight frown on her face, and wondered why.

“We could give it to them,” Ala said. “Jozef specifically asked for us from the Union-Metallwerke to help. We spoke again today.”

“And I have an idea of how we could smuggle the powder out,” Ester whispered excitedly.

“Yes!” Fejga said. “I have some ideas, as well!”

“And I know a few ways we could build a network,” I added.

“Wait, wait a minute!” Regina interrupted everyone. “Who says we are even doing this?”

We all looked at her.

“I mean, if the Nazi soldiers caught us, not only would we be discovered but it could expose the entire Sonderkommando plot.”

“Anyone could expose it,” I said quietly. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to uphold our duty to help them.”

Róża was solemn. “It just may be the only way we can make a difference here.”

Regina sighed. “But it could be a useless risk. Could we even smuggle enough powder in time?”

“If we dedicated ourselves to smuggling a bit every day, we could do it,” Hana said.

“And just enough gunpowder for one explosive could make a whole lot of difference,” Fejga added.

Silence descended as Regina thought it over. “I just don’t know. It is so risky, I—”

“Regina, look at me.” Róża leaned forward. Regina looked up and their eyes met. “Regina, I cannot stand it when people get hurt. When trusts are betrayed. When positions are used against those who gave them. But, you know what? The Nazis have hurt millions upon millions of our people. They have betrayed millions upon millions of trusts. And how many positions can you think of that the Nazis flip on their heads? Take the Sonderkommando. The men whom the Nazis revere a little more than animals, which they consider us. Yet in a matter of time, the entire Kommando will be killed. What if you turn your position around this once? To possibly save hundreds of lives? Think of Hadassah. She became queen and was able to use that to save the Jews, her people. Now you are a supervisor. Use that to save the Jews—your people.”

I felt like Róża had been speaking to me. With her words I felt a surge of hope, a small spring that began to trickle open in my heart. She was right, I knew. And at that moment I decided to try to “be strong and of good courage,” like Joshua said. I would try. I still did not believe that God would be with us wherever we went, but strength and courage I hungered for.

Regina looked down slowly at the candle, thinking. “You are right. You are all right… There is no other way, I have to do this so we can help them.”

Then she looked up. “Well, are we ready to make a plan?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

For the next few weeks, we built our network. Regina, Róża, and I took it upon ourselves to create the network among the women, which—while still dangerous—turned out to be simpler than any of us expected. One of the men from the Sonderkommando, by the name of Wrobel, set up a contact with Róża. As she did not work in the Union-Metallwerke, it was safer for her to pass the powder to the Sonderkommando in case they were captured. Without her, the network would have been much harder to safely build.

Ester, Hana, and I would take tiny pieces of gunpowder wrapped in cloth and pass it on to Ala, under Regina’s watchful eye. The women would then pass the powder down the chain through Fejga and Marta, then eventually to Róża. Róża would give it the to the Sonderkommando. After she discreetly passed the powder to Wrobel, she never saw the substance again. She just trusted the Kommando to take good care of the valuable powder.

Ester, Hana, and I set the goal to individually smuggle one packet of powder every day. The packets were small, of course—I think the largest packet we passed on was the size of a teaspoon. By far the smallest “delivery” was the day I packed a bit of powder under my long nails and passed it that way. It seemed so little, so insignificant—but nevertheless, any powder made a difference.

We came up with some other interesting ways to pass the packets on. Fejga took an old food tray from her labor unit, created a false bottom for it, and gave it to Ala. It became one of our most valuable ways to pass powder packets down the chain. We also tucked the packets into our headscarves, or hid the powder in matchboxes. I was always nervous to hand Ala a matchbox with powder in it—the prisoners were not supposed to have matches. Who knew if a German officer would find a matchbox on one of us, then—oh, then open it to find a packet of gunpowder hidden inside…

One time I thought I would surely be caught with the forbidden substance. That morning, I had torn a piece of fabric from my blanket that I planned to wrap powder in. But when I went to get the powder from the Pulveramm’s store, I realized that I had forgotten the fabric and it was still at the barracks.

Oh no! What do I do? Ala has the food tray, and who knows who has the matchbox… I can’t go back to the barracks and get it… But I had to take at least some powder, so I decided to take a small clump and just hand it to Regina, then let her decide how to pass it on. It might not be an ideal way to pass the powder, but it was the best I could do.

I took a small fistful of gunpowder and stepped out of the Pulveramm, where I planned to nonchalantly walk across the small yard to the Union-Metallwerke office where Regina was. I took a deep breath and prayed a silent prayer, then walked out into the yard, clump of powder squeezed tightly in my grip.

Then I saw them. Three officers walking across the opposite end of the yard. Trying not to panic, knowing what they would do if they found powder on me, I turned my face resolutely towards the back gate that led from the yard to the outhouses. No need to go directly to Regina if they are watching me, I thought.

I was walking toward the gate when I heard one of the officers shout, “Hey, you Jewess! Vhere do you sink you are going?”

My heart dropped.

I stopped and slowly turned around to see the officer marching towards me. “It is not a break time. You can vait. Get back to vork.” He jerked a thumb at the main door of the Union-Metallwerke.

I said, “I don’t work in the main unit, I work in the Pulveramm.” Uh-oh… That was a mistake…

I realized what I had done as soon as he commanded, “Stick out your arm and let me see your tattoo.”

Every prisoner when they arrived at Auschwitz would receive a tattoo on their left forearm with an identification number. As an officer, this man would have a list with the prisoner numbers that corresponded with where they worked. He wanted to see my tattoo to guarantee that I worked in the Pulveramm and was not just lying… but the tattoo was on my left arm. And the powder was in my left hand.

I froze. Oh no! How do I hide the powder?

“Right now, Saujude scum!” The officer’s hand lashed out for mine, and his cold glove grasped my wrist. I tried to yank away but his grip felt like iron.

As he jerked my wrist up to reveal my tattoo, I let my finger slip and the powder fell to the ground. I feigned resistance by stepping forward to pull away again, but the step was not to give me momentum—it was to crush the powder into the dirt.

The officer held on to my arm and examined my tattoo, then referred to a list he pulled out of his breast pocket. After a second, he grunted and said, “Okay. Now get back in zere.”

My head was reeling as I walked half-consciously back to the Pulveramm. That was way too close.

That night I told the other women about the incident. We all agreed that we had to be much more careful. If one of us was caught with even just a bit of powder, the entire Sonderkommando plan could be destroyed.

But the plan was too carefully built to be destroyed. Even the gunpowder’s secret location was carefully hidden—we did not know what the Kommando did with it. As far as we knew, the last we saw of it was when Róża would give it to Wrobel, and we trusted that she left it in good hands. After all, we were risking our lives for it. It was a constant, daily fear. Would we be caught today? Would our secret be discovered?

Time passed. For two and a half years, we waited and worked. It was 1944, and rumors circulated that the war was almost over, that the Soviet army was sweeping down on our land, liberating the land that Germany had taken. We expected they would reach us soon, and hoped the revolt would coincide with the army as it arrived at Auschwitz. But the men in Sonderkommando 59-B were afraid that the Soviets would not be here in time.

The time was coming, we knew, for Sonderkommando 12 of Auschwitz-Birkenau to be liquidated.

But what we did not know was that the time would come sooner than we anticipated.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

On October 7, the news came. It was shortly after our lunch break in the Union-Metallwerke when Regina raced into the Pulveramm workroom.

“Ester! Hana! Chaya! Come!”

“What is it?” Ester asked, dropping a tool as she stood up from the table.

Breathless, Regina gasped, “It’s begun! The—Kommando are to be liquidated—today!”

I felt the blood drain from my face and I leapt to my feet. “How do you know?” I cried.

“Come, you’ll see for yourself!”

We ran after Regina from our workroom through the Pulveramm and to the grounds outside. I was relieved to see no guards in the yard.

The Sonderkommando division 59-B were in the Crematorium, processing gassed corpses that had come in the day before. They had received the word sooner than we had, and by the time we arrived at the building, the Kommando and the camp Underground were already gathered in a processing chamber. We slipped in through a window that Wrobel had opened for us, and stood against the back wall of the room, listening intently.

One of the Kommando men, Jehuda Korczak, was talking fast, surrounded by the Crematorium IV men. As we ran in I heard him say, “It’s true! A senior officer wrote up the list for the Scharfuhrer Busch himself. A few hundred of us are to be sent away!”

“We must begin right now,” one man commanded. I recognized him as Jozef Warszawski, the resistance leader.

“I agree,” another man passionately cried. “They will summon us for a roll call shortly, in which case—” A resounding crash interrupted him, and everyone spun around to see what it was.

A guard stood at the door, anger etched over his entire face.

In a flash, Jehuda lunged for the man, tearing a Kommando knife out of his striped shirt, slashing the weapon with blinding speed. He thrust his arm forward as he leapt towards the guard—and I looked away.

When I looked back again a second later, the guard lay crumpled on the ground. Jehuda stood up slowly, wiping his bloody hands off on his trousers. I did not try to find the knife.

“That was too close,” Jozef solemnly said. “Jehuda, you take Lajb, Zalman, and Ajzyk and take care of the other two guards outside the Crematorium. We are too close to the liquidation to be discovered now.”

Jehuda saluted, and three other men followed him out the door.

I looked over at Regina, whose face was white and lips pursed. She glanced quickly at me, then whispered, “I have never handled that kind of thing well.”

Regina, Ester, Hana, and I left about fifteen minutes later. Somehow, Jehuda and the men had succeeded in killing the other guards. It was probably because they were able to outnumber the few guards on duty, but I did not try to find out. All I knew was the men had just thrown the guards’ bodies in the Crematorium pit when someone else unwanted came in—the Unterscharfuhrer, demanding the Kommando men to come outside promptly and line up. We women slipped out of the Crematorium before we could be caught, but we remained close just long enough to hear why the men were wanted.

The Scharfuhrer was demanding a roll call of all the Sonderkommando 59-B men from Crematorium IV.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

Regina contacted Ala and Róża, who swiftly passed the word to the other women involved about what was going on. For the next ten minutes, women slowly trickled into the barracks, where we were all gathered.

“They are going to cut the wire fence for the women’s camp,” Róża explained. “Wrobel told me. We are to wait here and stay low until the fighting breaks out, then we can escape.”

“Why not help them fight?” I asked.

“Chaya, we cannot fight. We’d only get in the way. We have to stay here.”

“Róża, I can’t stay here! To remain would be to helplessly watch as the men fight for their lives and ours! You know that we were unable to contact any partisan units, and the whole thing is so scattered there is no way we can even alert the other Crematoriums that it is happening. We ladies have to do what we can to help!”

“But Chaya—”

“No!” I stood up. “You all may not agree, but I am going. I will help.”

I slipped out of the barracks—undetected by any guards—and made my way back to Crematorium IV. I knelt by the side of the yard, next to a brick wall, and watched.

The Scharfuhrer was reading names from a paper in his hand. After each name, the man called would calmly walk across the courtyard to the far wall, where a number of men were already gathered. I recognized some of the men.

Why aren’t they starting? What are they waiting for? They had a plan, I knew, but how would it begin?

Scharfuhrer Busch reached his second sheet of paper. “Jehuda Korczak,” he called.

This is it. Jehuda will start it.

I watched tall Jehuda slowly step out of the line, head down, shuffling over to the group of men, feigning the role of a dejected prisoner.

What? Why didn’t he do something when he had that opportunity?

“Jankel Handelsman.” Another man walked from the line to the group.

“Lajb Panusz.” One of the men from the resistance, I knew. And deeply involved with the camp Underground.

“Chaim Neuhof.” A thin man, in the average ragged costume of camp inmates and with his right hand inside his shirt, stepped forward. He began shuffling with his head down, like the others, but he came closer to the Scharfuhrer than they had.

As he passed the Scharfuhrer, he stopped. He lifted his head and said something to the officer—I could not make out his words.

“Get back schere, Jew,” Scharfuhrer Busch commanded harshly.

Chaim looked him in the face, made some snarky remark, then—to the shock of both the Scharfuhrer and myself—whipped a hammer out of his ragged shirt!

Scharfuhrer Busch went pale. Chaim lifted the hammer above his head, let out a chesty “Hurrah!” and swung the heavy tool.

Crack.

Chaim’s well-aimed hammer landed smartly on the officer’s head. Unfortunately, from my vantage point I watched the Scharfuhrer collapse dead under the blow. Chaim had shattered his skull. My stomach turned and I felt sick, even though the man just killed was one we wished to kill.

Immediately, the other Kommando men brandished similar hammers and crudely-made—yet dangerously sharp—knives. With a shout they fell upon the Nazi guards like wolves upon their prey, slamming and shattering and slicing the guards, who had been taken completely by surprise.

A few men, including Jozef, whipped out some small items that I strained to see clearly.

Sardine tins? Why were they holding sardine tins? Oh… When Jozef chucked his tin right into the middle of the group of guards, I realized what they had been doing with our gunpowder.

The hand-made grenade detonated, exploding into a thousand sharp pieces that flew through the air. I heard the collective yowl of pain from the group of soldiers, and each Brownshirt scrambled as the Sonderkommandos hammered down their captors.

I have to let the other Kommando divisions know that the revolt has begun! I leapt up from my crouched position and turned towards Crematorium III. As I took off running to the large building I heard shouts from behind me. Looking over my shoulder at Crematorium IV, I saw the Sonderkommando tearing back into the building, leaving the black-uniformed soldiers for dead on the ground. After a moment smoke began billowing from one of the Crematorium windows, then another, and after a second shout the men ran back out again.

As soon as the men were out, I heard a low rumble, then Crematorium IV exploded.

They must have set fire to all that hidden powder! I thought. With an ear-shattering roar, the roof of the building blew open and flames leapt out. The windows were all shattered by now, and the fire snaked out of them and caught onto a side building, setting it aflame.

Then I noticed most of the men running towards the wire camp border. They are going to cut themselves out! But what about the women’s camp? Briefly forgetting the fact that I was supposed to alert the other Crematoriums, I took off after the fleeing men.

“Chaya!”

I turned and saw Jehuda running up to me, covered in smoke, with a bloody streak over his chest. “Chaya, get out of here! Why are you here? You and the women are supposed to be at your barracks!”

“I had to come find some way to help! And the men are running off without—”

A bullet whizzed by my head. Jehuda lunged forward and slammed me down onto the ground before another one sliced the air right where my head had been.

“Go!” Jehuda pointed to a low wall two yards away. “I will follow! Just stay down!”

I turned onto my stomach and began pulling myself towards the wall, trying to ignore the muddy ground under me. All I could hear were the crackling flames of the Crematorium, the shouts of Kommando men attacking any guard they could find, and the screams of other prisoners. And Jehuda behind me.

In a second, we were behind the brick wall. I immediately pushed myself up onto my knees but felt Jehuda’s hand grasp my elbow. “No, Chaya, stay down.”

I whipped around to look at him. “Jehuda Korczak! We have to alert the other Crematoriums!”

“Chaya, look!” He pointed to the Crematorium III, the entrance of which we could just see from our position. Kommando men were in front of the building, fighting, but the Nazi guards were pushing them back.

“They aren’t going to make it,” I said.

“We can’t do anything. The noise we made at Crematorium IV will have served to alert them.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. His sandy-brown hair was a tousled mess and he had dirt streaks all over his face, but the look in his eyes said nothing about backing down. “If we can get to a Crematorium without being seen between here and there, then we can help. We can gather the men together and organize a fair fight. But for now, well, all I have is my knife. We can’t do a thing from our position.”

He’s right. I didn’t want to admit it. I wanted to run out to the fighting and do something, anything, to stop these Nazis in their tracks.

Sitting here behind a brick wall did not seem like the most helpful thing I could do.

“Chaya? Jehuda?”

We both looked up to see Róża leaning over the wall, with her hair a mess and face flushed, but energy in her voice.

“Get up here! The Sonderkommando of Crematorium II are fighting and winning!”

Jehuda leapt to his feet. “They are? The Kommando in III—”

“I know that Kommando III are losing, and Crematorium I actually never began. But the men in II are fighting hard and are asking for you and Jozef Warszawski!”

“Let’s go,” Jehuda said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet. “I do not know where Jozef is, but we can go and help.”

Róża disappeared over the wall. I wondered what was on the other side of that wall until Jehuda and I ran around the corner. The wall was one of the enclosures holding bodies waiting to be burned in the Crematorium.

I gasped in shocked disgust, but Róża whispered, “It’s okay, Chaya. A great place to hide.”

Crematorium II was only ten yards away over a dirt road. The fighting seemed to be centered inside the building, and Nazi guards had quelled the conflict at III. Of course, Crematorium IV was engulfed in flames.

Then I heard the sirens.

“Run!” Jehuda cried. “The command center of the camp has been alerted—we don’t have much time!”

He grasped our hands and dragged us up as he stood. Then he took off, Róża and I forced close behind him.

The wall of the Crematorium was tall and lined with long windows. None of the them were broken, I noticed.

I looked over my shoulder to see a troop of soldiers running up the trail to the Crematoriums, guns in hand. One lifted his rifle and pointed it at us. I knew that they were too far for an accurate shot, but even a stray bullet could do serious damage.

“Get in here!” Jehuda shouted, smashing one of the windows with the butt of his knife. Róża and I threw ourselves into the window, landing on our hands and knees on the stone floor inside. We were in a room with equipment, a large door on one end. I heard yelling and fighting from outside the room.

We heard a scream of pain from behind us. I whipped around to see Jehuda, trying to pull himself up through the window, blood spurting out of his side. Another bullet whizzed right above his head.

“Jehuda!” Róża and I rushed forward to where he lay next to the window, hands clawing at the sill in an attempt to pull himself in, his knife still in his right hand. We grabbed his arms by his shoulders and tried to pull him in, but only succeeded in pulling him a few feet off the ground. He was six and a half feet of muscle, and we could not pull him through the window.

“No—no,” he gasped. “Go, girls—get out of here, into that room before you get caught!” His voice lurched between raspy gasps of air.

I saw the soldiers tearing up the trail, only twenty yards away, one of them raising his rifle again.

“No!” I screamed. “No, Jehuda, you are coming with us! We have to get you in here!”

Jehuda looked up at me, his tan face smeared in dirt and his blue eyes piercing through my heart. “Chaya, go. Fight—don’t give up, don’t back down until—until you can’t get back up again. Right now, I can’t get back up, I—”

The bullet appeared out of nowhere. It pierced him right under the left arm, just inches away from my desperate fingers still trying to pull him into the window.

Those blue eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped to the ground.

I stood there staring at him, shocked, not able to think, not able to breathe, until Róża grabbed my elbow and cried, “Let’s go, Chaya!”

A bullet whizzed by the window and shook me out of my stupor. I jumped back from the window and saw Jehuda’s knife on the floor, where his fingers had dropped it after that deadly bullet penetrated his chest.

I scooped up the blood-stained knife and turned after Róża.

We flung open the big door to reveal the main floor of the Crematorium, one giant room with a hundred men or so from Sonderkommando 57-B, grappling desperately with various Nazi soldiers attempting to stop them. Everywhere I turned, dead bodies littered the floors. Yells of battle and the sounds of gunshots, hammers, and mini explosions echoed in the large chamber.

My heart sank. Most of the men of Kommando 57-B were dead, and the rest were severely outnumbered and out-armed.

Jehuda had wanted to come and help keep the doors shut before the Nazis broke in. He had wanted to lead the men, who were fighting individually and without any uniform leadership. Jehuda was the only one who could have prevented this from happening.

But he was dead, and we were too late.

The giant doors crashed open and a second torrent of Nazi Brownshirts flooded in, some of them with giant dogs snarling and lunging at the end of their leashes. But this troop was not armed with large rifles—they held machine guns.

The first row of Brownshirts in line lifted their weapons and opened fire, the distinctive rat-a-tat-a-tat of the machine guns thundering through the room. The powerful guns mowed down the first line of screaming Kommando men, but the next lines of striped-clothed inmates whipped out mini grenades and began chucking them at the attackers. Unfortunately, the men had no leader and threw the grenades individually, without a clear plan, so they did little damage before the second volley of bullets took out the next row of Kommando men. More Nazis poured into the building with more guns, and I knew that the Kommando was doomed.

Róża and I had been standing by the wall, too shocked to do anything, but once we saw those machine guns we knew we had to get out. Róża whipped around and grabbed for the handle of the side room door, yanking it open and tearing inside, me right on her heels. We slammed the door shut right before a third machine-gun volley tore across the room and the air filled with screams and shouts of anger.

Róża and I found a low table in the room and pulled ourselves underneath it. We plugged our ears to the still-wailing sirens and the sound of the giant dogs now set loose to finish off the rest of the men.

Under that low table, knees pulled to my chin and heart ripped in two, I began crying. Crying, for the first time since being dragged from our home on 3 Zydowska Street, to the ghetto and the beginning of my heinous nightmare, since witnessing my father murdered before my eyes and being torn away from the arms of my mother, from being set to work all day in a tight, humid room and yelled at by soldiers, to the flea-infested “mattresses” and thread-bare “blankets” of the barracks… All the way to watching noble Jehuda die, covered in blood, fingers clawing at the sill in a final, desperate attempt when I could not pull him through the window. Oh, oh, if only I had enough strength that I could have pulled him through and saved him! If only I had obeyed him hiding behind the wall and not argued! I had slowed him down. If I was not there he would have come straight to Crematorium II and could have saved the fight, rescued the men, rescued the revolt. It was my fault. All my fault. And he had died for it.

Oh, God! I cried out in my bitter heart. Why, oh why, have you forsaken us? Why don’t you come? Why do you let your people suffer and die without doing a thing to help us? The overwhelming anguish completely absorbed me, and I broke down into a sobbing mess.

I looked down at Jehuda’s knife. Blood from where he had stabbed the guard stained the crudely-made, hand-hewn weapon. The handle had a dent in the butt because of how hard Jehuda had slammed it against the sturdy glass window. And it had been the last thing in his fingers as he died.

We had failed. Jehuda had failed. Jozef and Wrobel and everyone had failed. Oh, Messiah, where are you? How long must we wait?

My heart was bitter. These Nazis, the very flesh of cruelty and bloodthirst, had taken over our home and murdered our people… And they murdered my heart. I had tried to be strong. I had tried to be courageous. But I knew now that there was absolutely no hope.

Then I heard her. Róża humming, soft and low. I opened my eyes to see her sitting, clutching her knees, eyes closed, chin raised, sweetly humming a tune.

She hummed an old Judaic song, one of peace and rest. Her eyes were closed, black lashes resting against her gaunt face, as she sang the words.

I sat in awe as Róża, emaciated and pale from the tortures of the camp, dressed in a threadbare uniform, with dirt stains all over her body, quietly sang, “Shalom, shalom, sha’alu shalom…”

Peace! How could she sing about peace in a time like this? When the embodiment of chaos reigned outside the door and tore our people to shreds!

Then I felt something inside me say, “I have not forgotten you, Chaya. Stay strong. I am with you.”

No, how could God have not forgotten us? And now there was no reason to stay strong. I had tried, I really did. But now there was no reason. The spring in my heart that had slipped open at Róża’s words long ago when we discussed joining the revolt… now slammed shut.

I plugged my ears and closed my eyes again, but all I saw in my head were Jehuda’s fingers clutching the sill and the sight of a hundred Jewish men dead on the Crematorium floor.

And all I heard were the words to Róża’s song. “Shalom, shalom…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

For the next few days, the Nazis furiously searched for the conspirators. And I was sure that Róża, Regina, Ala, the Wajcblum sisters, and the rest of us would be found.

The revolt had been subdued less than an hour after it began. The machine guns, dogs, and troops of soldiers quickly overwhelmed the flung-together, unorganized revolt, and for the next few hours, everyone in the camp had to pay for what happened in one form or another. The revolt had been so unorganized… We had originally planned for it to be a united attempt, and happen in the stealth of the night. That is most likely why it failed.

The men who had cut the fence and escaped the camp were returned, dead or alive. A dozen of them remained missing, but were found soon afterwards near Rajsko. None of them survived. A man tried to cut the fence of the women’s camp but, for some reason, did not succeed.

The day of the revolt, nearly 250 prisoners died fighting. We, on the other hand, managed to wound nearly 70 Brownshirts. Unfortunately, we only managed to kill three SS officers. Soon after subduing the revolt, the Nazis forced a couple hundred men of the Sonderkommando to lie on the ground, then they shot them. The Nazis kept some for interrogation, but the men were stoic and remained silent.

The remaining Sonderkommando men—now a mere 198—were called out to the man courtyard of the camp, lined up, and given a ghastly, threatening speech from a Nazi officer
who practically screamed at them the entire time. His anger alone scared the prisoners into submission, besides the harshness of the speech. He railed at the men, screaming and cursing at them, full of angry threats.

Meanwhile, we women waited in terror, praying that we would not be found, praying that no one would betray us.

I ended up learning to never, ever trust a Nazi. Ala had befriended a kind-hearted officer a year or so ago and told him about the plot. She had mentioned Ester and Regina in the plot as well, but trusted him and never thought he would betray her confidence.

But he did. A few days after the revolt, Ester, Regina, and Ala were taken away.

The next few weeks seemed like a hazy dream. Someone, I don’t know who, betrayed Róża as well, and an SS officer took her away. I was gone at the time, working my shift in the Union-Metallwerke, and returned to find Róża gone and Fejga sobbing on her cot. Fejga explained, between tears, that the officer had simply taken Róża away without any warning or explanation. He mentioned something about Róża’s possible connection with the Sonderkommando plot. Fejga never knew Róża very well, but admired both her sweet innocence and grit.

The four women were gone for weeks. Fejga, Marta, Hana Wajcblum, and I spent each night huddled with the rest of the women in our small group, like we always had, but everyone felt the missing presence of Ala, Ester, Regina, and Róża. We did not know if the women were dead or alive, how bad the Nazis were torturing them, or if we would be taken next.

But we did know that the Nazis had taken the four best women of the group, the last ones who would ever say a word about the plot. Unfortunately, as we knew the Nazis would never be satisfied by them, we all knew that the soldiers would kill them.

We were wrong. To our utter astonishment, a few weeks later a group of Brownshirts came to the women’s camp with four scarred, bloody, nearly-dead women.

We quickly got the women into our barracks, shocked that they were still alive. Well, mostly alive. Their wounds were horrible, and we spent all our off-shift time tending to the four women. Their bodies were scarred from the insane, cruel torture methods that the Nazis had used on them, and Regina had almost been killed. But those Nazis had not been satisfied. They never got one word of valuable information from the women. The only details the women would tell them were details they already knew, the only names they gave were those of already-killed Kommando men.

By the time the women were released, their bodies were broken but their spirits were not. Their spirits were still on fire.

And Róża still pitied the soldiers and prayed for peace. Not revenge. Peace. I hated them all the more.

How differently our stories would end.

The Nazis, still intent on finding every man or woman involved, hired an undercover agent named Eugen Koth, a Czech half-Jew who took the position ostensibly as a labor unit commander, but was really spying on us to find any information he could. He discovered more names and details, and soon Ala, Ester, Regina, and Róża were re-arrested. Eugen had heard more things about their help in the Union-Metallwerke.

This time, they would not be released. On January 6, 1945, the Nazis held the last execution of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. And four of the noblest women in the world were at the end of the noose.

Usually, if the Nazis needed someone like the women to be killed, they would order a firing squad. But, no, for this execution, the situation called for something more drastic. The Nazis wanted every woman in camp to know what would happen to them if they dared try something like what Róża and the others did.

The Nazis decided that Ester and Regina would be executed in the afternoon with the night-shift women assembled, and Ala and Róża would be executed at night in front of the day-shift women. This was because half of the women in the camp worked a night shift, and the Nazis wanted all the women to witness the executions.

I was day shift. I would have to watch Róża’s execution.

I never saw Ester and Regina. I was working in the Pulveramm when they were executed. But later, other women told me about it through their tears. It was the worst thing they had witnessed, they said. I found out for myself what they meant when I watched the execution of Ala and Róża that night.

The dreadful gallows I had seen were erected in the camp, gallows that seemed more ghastly and cold to me than anything else I had ever seen. The sun was setting and cast long, orange-tinted shadows over the wooden frames, accentuating their stark, horrid blackness.

After forcing our crowd to assemble, an officer led the two women up to the gallows and slipped the nooses around their necks. A quiet hush fell over the crowd, the only sound being that of women weeping or, if they tried to look away, Brownshirts barking at them to keep their gaze steadied toward the gallows.

Ala Gertner and Róża Robota held their chins high, gazed ahead, and stolidly refused to show any sign of submission.

I stood next to Fejga. She and I had grown closer since Róża was arrested, and now it was comforting to be standing near a friend.

The crowd reminded me of the crowd on the train when we were brought here almost two years before. The dreadful smell of sweaty, sick, dirty bodies.

I remembered the smell of fear.

The executioner stepped away, satisfied with the nooses. He raised his arm, giving his men the signal to prepare the levers that would release the trapdoor hatches beneath Ala and Róża’s feet.

“Chazak v’amatz!”

Róża’s cry burst out unexpectedly, her voice full of passion as she shouted the phrase again, and Ala cried, “Nekamah! Nekamah!”

Nekamah means vengeance. I agreed with her. But… Chazak v’amatz means “Be strong and of good courage.”

“Be strong and of good courage.” The words I had given up on, from the God I had given up on… and my best friend’s last words. At that moment, my heart was torn in two.

The officer’s arm dropped. His men released the levers.

And the trapdoor dropped beneath Ala and Róża’s feet.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

Chazak v’amatz. Shalom. Róża’s simple, pure faith. Her pity for the Nazis who so cruelly treated her. Her prayers for peace and firm belief in courage. She never believed that the LORD had left our side. And she never once hated the Nazis.

Did I agree with her? No—do I agree with her?

Years later, I am now free. The Soviet army, as we had expected, finally arrived at Auschwitz and relieved the camp… only three weeks after the hanging.

I now live in the United States, where I have found a good synagogue here in Brooklyn and am settled into a new way of life. But after what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced, I view the world differently. I see it through the lens of someone who has lost everybody, everything, even much of my faith, because of the horrors of the Holocaust and the evil Nazi regime. Six million of my fellow Jews were murdered in World War II, for no other reason than being Jewish. I still cannot fathom it.

But recently I have been thinking about the way I view things in light of the people that the war tore away from me. Would Abba, scholarly and devout Abba, want me to doubt God as I now do? Would Mama, tender, dear Mama, want me to view it all in hate? Would Ala, Regina, and Ester want me to think that nothing can still be good? Would Jehuda want me to give up, give in, even when I still retain the strength to stand?

And Róża… oh, dear Róża, my best friend, my opposite in many ways yet my anchor in all… Would she have wanted me to look upon the Nazis with bitter, red anger as I do? To ignore her last cry and let go of any motivation to stand up and be courageous? I live in anger, but she died encouraging the women of the camp and telling us to not lose courage.

Would she want her best friend to lose courage?

And… does God want me to lose courage?

But, I tell myself, God left us to the Nazis. He turned away. Good people like Róża stand up take courage… and they are killed for it while the rest of the world, and God, turn away.

Then again… Is that a reason for hate? What if our enemies need God just as much as the rest of us? What if He has not forgotten us, and He lets cruel things happen in our lives to remind us that we need Him?

I don’t know. I know how Abba and Mama, Jehuda, and the other women would have answered that question.

I know how Róża would have answered that question.

And, after long thought and deep prayer… I know now how I must answer that question.

“No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I [God] was with Moses, so shall I be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. … Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:5, 9

Acknowledgements:

I want to add a big thank-you to the people who helped me with my story, from the first research to the last edit. They are my parents, sister, Mr. Salatin, Mrs. Jenny, Abigail, Leona, Michael, and all the other people who have supported me, offered ideas, and given feedback. You all are amazing and I am so thankful for your help!

And of course, I have to thank Mr. Brett, Jacquelle, Josiah, Theron, and all of the Young Writer’s Workshop—the amazing writing program that has helped me improve with leaps and bounds in my work!

But the biggest thank-you is to God, who gave me a love for words and passion for writing. Everything I write is ultimately for Him.

Sources:

About Anna Heilman

http://annaheilman.net/About%20Anna%20Heilman.htm

Find A Grave

Ester Wajcblum

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16811768/ester-wajcblum

Jewish Virtual Library

Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau (October 7, 1944)

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-revolt-at-auschwitz-birkenau

Jewish Women’s Archive

Encyclopedia – Roza Robota

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/robota-roza

History

The Great Sonderkommando Revolt of 1944

https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-great-sonderkommando-revolt-of-1944

History Collection

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

https://historycollection.com/women-of-peace-and-those-sided-the-wrong-of-world-war-ii/

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Auschwitz

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Prisoner Revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/auschwitz-revolt

Wagner College

Women & Resistance

https://wagner.edu/holocaust-center/survivor-collections/women-resistance/

Wikipedia

Anna Heilman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Heilman

Wikipedia

Ala Gertner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ala_Gertner

Wikipedia

Roza Robota

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roza_Robota