history · 07 October 1944 · 80 years ago
Jewish prisoners of the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp organized a large revolt and escape. Crematorium IV was set on fire, while SS guards came under attack. During the havoc, some of the prisoners were successful in cutting through the perimeter fencing and got outside, but the SS guard responded and successfully rounded up all escapees and killed them all. After the revolt was put down in the camp, about 250 prisoners, including leader Zalmen Gradowski and Józef Deresinski, were dead. Three SS men were also killed; ten were wounded. Four Jewish women who had stolen the explosives from their workplace at the Union-Werke armaments factory, which were used during this revolt, were later hanged.
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