Revolts in Holocaust camps

Answer 1

Clandestine resistance groups formed in many concentration camps with political prisoners and captured members of national resistance groups often providing the leadership. For example, in 1940 many Communists and captured French resistance fighters united to form a resistance organization at Ravensbrück, a camp for women prisoners situated north of Berlin. Three women of different nationalities and political affiliations led the group. To raise the spirits of prisoners and give hope for eventual escape or liberation, the resisters traded newspapers, battle maps, and war information. They also held secret political meetings to share news and information about the camp. All these activities were extremely dangerous. On May 15, 1944, prisoners in the Birkenau Gypsy family camp learned that the camp administration intended to gas the 6,000 remaining Gypsy prisoners the next day. When SS guards armed with machine guns surrounded the camp and attempted to begin the transport to the gas chambers, they met armed resistance. After stealing scraps of sheet metal, prisoners had sharpened the metal into crudely fashioned knives. With those improvised weapons, and with iron pipes, clubs, and stones, the Gypsies defended themselves. Guards shot some resisters. The final liquidation of the camp occurred in early August when guards moved 2,897 men, women, and children to the gas chambers in the dead of night.

Uprisings in camps

There were major uprisings as follows:

1. Trelinka, 2 August 1943 - revolt and breakout by the Sonderkommando. About 40 of those who escaped were still alive at the end of the war.
2. Sobibor, 14 October 1943 - revolt and mass breakout by the Sonderkommando. Of the 500 or so prisoners who managed to escape an estimated 50 plus were still alive at the end of the war.
3. Auschwitz II (Birkenau), 7 October 1944 - revolt by the Sonderkommandos at Crematoria II and IV, the latter being blown up using explosives smuggled into the camp. Attempted mass breakout was not successful.
4. Buchenwald, 9 April 1945 - The political prisoners stormed the watchtowers and succeeded in liberating the camp, obviously in the knowledge that US forces were close at hand.