It was October 1944 when a group of prisoners in a Polish death factory revolted.
That afternoon on October 7, this "yes or no to the shower we were talking about?" Was heard. And it was done. And they lived free for a while.
In order for this to happen, of course, the Greek-Jewish uprising in Crematorium 4 of the Auschwitz II extermination campBirkenau and the blasting of the ovens, for months the young Jews working at the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke ammunition factory in Auschwitz I had been stealing small quantities of gunpowder.
When the gunpowder was enough for the purposes they wanted, he went through a chain of hands to the tragic Sonderkommando of Crematorium 4. The plan was to blow up the gas chambers and furnaces first and then the uprising would unfold.
That morning some 200 inmates were scheduled to be killed, thwarting the conspiracy plan. The Sonderkommando, the hostages who put the corpses in the ovens, attacked the SS with what they had managed to store: knives, axes, improvised canister grenades, and two cannons.
Some of the 450 insurgents managed to escape, but were captured again within hours. Those who did not die trying to escape were executed later in the day with a bullet to the back of the head.
In short, this was the short-lived history of the Auschwitz uprising, the only such incident in this Nazi inferno. A story that had a Greek signature…
The diary wrote October 7, 1944 and it was a Saturday. The Nazis were to lead 200 Greek and Hungarian Jews to extermination. The SS they start reading the names from the death lists, only no one answers.
On the contrary, a voice is heard in Greek asking if "will the shower we were talking about take place yes or no?". And it is possible. They rush and disarm the guards and fortify themselves at Crematorium 3 with the few supplies they have, waiting for the developments.
The next crematorium has sounded the alarm: the first shots are fired. Some German soldiers are wounded and for a while it looks like the move will be successful. For a while. The battle turns out to be unequal. The prisoners blow up the crematorium and escape to the forest.
Most will fall there, free, rebellious. Others will be fortified in a barn, which will be handed over by the SS to the flames, burning people alive. The rest will be handed over and executed by the afternoon.
According to the testimonies, of the 451 Jews who took that day in the uprising, 300 were of Greek origin. Only 26 survived.
One of them, Marcel Natzari from Thessaloniki, reserve dean at Albanian Front, he remembers in his shocking manuscript that "even for a few minutes, they were found free".
The Enlightenment Department of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made some such testimonies book ("Greeks in Auschwitz-Birkenau"), a torment of particular importance and symbolic, as the uprising in Auschwitz is one of the few examples of armed opposition inside the Nazi concentration camps.
And, as it turns out, it was not a desperate cry for freedom, but an organized plan that took months to reach its coveted moment. But he was betrayed at the last minute, without it being clear by whom.
Some revolted in Treblinka in August 1943, some in Sobibor two months later, and again Greek Jews (from Corfu) caused unrest in Auschwitz in June 1944, but were executed en masse.
In August, his officer Hellenic Army, Joseph Varouch, already having in his assets a failed attempt at an uprising in Auschwitz, sees his plans fail again at the last minute. Having gathered around him Greek, Russian and Polish inmates were ready to take up arms on the 15th of the month, but the arrival at the camp of 4.000 Polish Jews that day, accompanied by a strong SS force, thwarted the plans.
"In the camp we only spoke Greek, because you see we felt alienated," recalls Leon Howell from Thessaloniki. And they conspired with Vamvakaris' rebetika, which changed the lyrics, but also ancient Greek.
A Greek Christian among them, Vasso Stamatiou, was later informed that the war was over by a young Hungarian poet who knew ancient Greek and told her that "it's their fame, Hitler passed away".
As Fotini Tomai writes in her book, which reconstructs the uprising from the available testimonies of Greek and foreign survivors: "On Saturday, October 7, 1944, the Germans attempted to remove an additional 200 men (Greeks and Hungarians) who had already been selected for extermination. It was about 14:30 at noon when a group of SS arrived with lists for the second selection ".
Within a short time, strong guard forces with machine guns and dogs surrounded the area and a heroic but desperately unequal battle began.
Of the 300 Greek Jews who took part in the uprising, only 26 survived. Most fell heroically under the rain of bullets, while the rest who surrendered were executed on the spot, such as Moses Aaron, Jacob Broudo, Isaac Baruch who belonged to Crematorium IV and Sam Carasso.
Those Greek Jews from the other crematoria who watched the events, unable to react, remember that the Greek was heard in the clicks and screams. National Anthem».
Be that as it may, the Nazis were shocked by the heroic act of the Greek Jews, showing that anything is possible. Especially since the Crematorium IV, one of the 5 of Birkenau, became useless and they were forced to demolish it. Even worse for them, it was the first time the Germans had counted the loss of men in the place where they felt and were strongest: in this great death industry of World War II.
The news of the Greek uprising spread to Auschwitz at a rapid pace. As Leon Perachia recalled in his memoirs ("Mazal"): "When we entered the camp, my Polish friends who were going to Birkenau were waiting for me. As soon as they saw me they said to me: “A great blessing to the Greeks who did what no one dared to do for so many years. They went to revolutionize the crematoria, blew up a crematorium, but were betrayed.
"When they were mounted on the wall and their machine guns were harvested, we heard them singing. A Greek who was near us, told us that they sing the Greek national anthem. What greatness of soul, their last thought and their last breath was in Greece ". When they told me, I could not hold back my tears, I was so excited. They felt like Greeks and died like Greeks. "
A handful of Greek insurgents who survived became legendary figures inside the camp. As Leon Cohen remembered ("From Greece in Birkenau "):" The British staff were so impressed that they called us "the Greek bandits", the "Greek gang". Every time we went to the kitchen, the Russians, who worked there, praised us and sanctified us, they considered what happened as revenge for the murder of their comrades that had preceded.
Long after our escape from Birkenau, on January 17, 1945, when we met with other prisoners in various camps (such as Mauthausen, Guzi 1 and 2, Melk, Ebenze, etc.) we were asked if the uprising had really taken place.
In smaller camps, the prisoners were inspired by this sacrifice by a handful of Greek Jews who, like David, had opposed a modern and bloodthirsty Goliath. As Jews and Greeks, they had fought for their homeland and for their country.
In conclusion, we, the survivors of Birkenau, must always remember the extraordinary bravery of a handful of our fellow citizens. In the annals of the extermination camps, heroism on such a level was unique. As a rule, all deportees were left to slaughter themselves like animals. May the memory of our friends stay with us, forever ".
Dr. Albert Menassé, in his memoirs in 1947 ("Memories of an eyewitness"), talking about the story of the 300 Greek Jews who raised a banner inside Auschwitz ("chanting the Greek national anthem, three hundred Greek Jews,")
"The riots lasted all afternoon. All Sonders slaughtered… Immediately the next day the remaining three crematoria are reinforced with new staff. Forty-eight hours after the mutiny, the awful chimneys extinguish their eternal and awful flames again. The corpses of the heroes were burned. "
The uprising of October 7, 1944 was planned and carried out by the members of the Zondercomado group, which in Greek translates somewhat as a "Special Working Group". They were undoubtedly the most tragic figures of the Holocaust victims, the people who put the bodies of their fellow believers in the ovens.
Each Zondercomado series worked for just a few months, and when the next one succeeded, they burned their own corpses. Despite the fact that they lived in isolation from the other inmates, it seems that the resourceful Greek mind found the solution.
The Greek Zondercomanto sang well-known rebetikas, parsing the lyrics, in order to convey messages to "Kananda Commando", the nearby clothing sorting center where several Greek women worked.
Hines Salvatore Cunio, Auschwitz survivor, recalled (in "Auschwitz - Greeks - Future Number") that "the uprising was about the commandos… It was from these people who worked in the crematoriums… The uprising, they had agreed to work there , his name was Zondercomando… The difference was that his people had no contact with others. "They all agreed between the crematoria that they would revolt, because there was no other solution."
Kounio well remembered another Jewish officer in the Greek Army, Alberto Herrera, who took part in orchestrating the uprising. Joseph Varouch (from Ioannina) and Albert Herrera (from Larissa) who are mentioned by various sources as the instigators of the uprising had fought in the Epic of 1940 and were later captured.
Herrera, who was behind both previous insurgency attempts, managed to escape into the neighboring forest, until he was discovered by SS dogs, who tortured him by skinning him alive. "In the following days, the Greeks of the camp spoke with pride about the act of our compatriot who managed to kill at least two of the SS," recalled the Athenian hostage Henry of Seville ("Athens-Auschwitz").
The Italian Jew Slomo Venezia, also imprisoned in Auschwitz, tells us in his book ("Through the Hell of the Gas Chambers") that Herrera's body was taken to Crematorium 2 and "his body, completely dismembered and deformed, was exposed on a table in the courtyard of the crematorium. They forced us all to pass one by one in front to see the deformed and unrecognizable face of our partner. "The Germans were extremely nervous, and anyone who looked away ate buttocks."
Hines Cunio gives us something else: "It is a fact that Hellenes who worked in the block of Zondercomando… had also raised Greek flags from rags, who found the blue I do not know, but the white were the sheets that, some dirty covers that we had and made Greek flags "…
The 450 rebels were cremated in crematoria. It was not the end of the titles, as it would fall on January 2, 1945, when the Jews of the Union factory who had supplied the gunpowder were identified, humiliated and hanged. The hanging of women inside Auschwitz is unprecedented.
This was the short-lived act of resistance to the symbol of Nazi atrocity, when a handful of impoverished people faced their captors knowing in advance that this game could not be won. Probably waving a piece of striped fabric from their uniforms, pretending to be the Greek flag, they claimed the right to a less dignified death.
Gideon Greif, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Texas, observed in the presentation of the book by historian George Pilichos ("Auschwitz - Greeks - Number of Deaths") that Greek Jewish prisoners "had a different mentality and challenged the beast. They did not understand the unwritten laws of the camp, the conditions. They were friendly people. "You had to be cunning to survive in Auschwitz."
The Italian intellectual and hostage of the Holocaust, Primo Levy, has told us something similar: "The spirit of solidarity that distinguished the Greeks, their aversion to violence, their conscience of survival and their struggle to preserve their human dignity made them the most compact national team in the camp and therefore the most civilized "…
