Rosa Robota
„Seid stark und tapfer!"
(*1921 in Ciechanow, Polen ; † 5.Januar 1945 im KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau)

wurde als eine der vier Frauen hingerichtet, die 1944 am (zweiten)bewaffneten Aufstand des jüdischen Häftlings-Sonderkommandosin den Krematorien III und IV im deutschenKZ Birkenau beteiligt waren.

Am 7. 10. 1942 explodierte ein Krematorium in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Die Häftlinge des Sonderkommandos" hatten den Aufstand begonnen! Der Sprengstoff, mit dem das Krematorium in die Luft gesprengt wurde, war von der jüdischen Anti-Nazistin Roza Robota organisiert worden.
Rosa Robota war Mitglied der jüdischen Organisation Hashomer Hatzair. Als die Nazis in ihrer Heimatstadt Ciechanow in Polen das Ghetto liquidierten, wurde die 21jährige Rosa nach Auschwitz-Birkenau deportiert. Während ihre Eltern von der SS sofort in den Gaskammern vernichtet wurden, wurde Rosa in der Bekleidungskammer zur Zwangsarbeit eingeteilt.

Bald nach ihrer Ankunft nahm die Widerstandsorganisation von Auschwitz-Birkenau Kontakt mit ihr auf.
Noah Zabladowicz informierte sie über den Aufstandsplan, der die Sprengung der Krematorien und Gaskammern umfaßte.
Rosa wohnte mit Frauen, die sie vom Untergrundkampf in Polen her kannte, in einer Baracke. Diese Frauen waren größtenteils als Zwangsarbeiterinnen in den Rüstungswerken „Union" (Zweigbetrieb der Krupp­Werke) beschäftigt. Sie organisierte eine zuverlässige Truppe von 20 Frauen, die in mühevoller Arbeit und mit viel Raffinesse Sprengstoff aus der Fabrik schmuggelten. Rosa selbst transportierte den Sprengstoff zur Widerstandsorganisation, wo er letztendlich bei dem sowjetischen Gefangenen und Sprengstoffexperten Borodin anlangte, der mit Hilfe von Sardinendosen Sprengkörper bastelte.

Rosa Robota wurde nach dem Aufstand durch einen Spitzel verraten. Mit ihr wurden drei weitere Frauen aus den Union-Werken verhaftet. Die SS folterte Rosa mehrere Tage lang grausam. Zu Recht vermutete die SS, dass Rosa direkten Kontakt zur Widerstandsorganisation hatte. Die Widerstandsorganisation machte sich auch auf das schlimmste gefasst, denn die Foltermethoden der SS waren berüchtigt.

Mit Hilfe eines jüdischen Gefangenen konnte Noah Zabladowicz Roza in ihrer Todeszelle besuchen. Er fand sie grausam entstellt durch die Folter, aber völlig ungebrochen. Sie hatte niemand verraten, als Kontaktmann hatte sie einen bereits verstorbenen jüdischen Häftling genannt. Sie schrieb eine Nachricht an die Untergrundorganisation nieder, die unterzeichnet war mit: „Seid stark und tapfer!"

Wenige Tage später wurden Rosa Robota, Esther Wajsblum, Ala Gertner und Regina Safirsztain auf dem Apeliplatz gehängt, nur 22 Tage bevor das KZ Auschitz-Birkenau aufgelöst wurde...

Um drei Uhr nachmittags am 27. Januar 1945 trafen die ersten sowjetischen Soldaten im KZ Auschwitz und Auschwitz-Birkenau ein. Ihnen bot sich ein Bild des Grauens: Allein vor den Baracken von Birkenau finden sie die Leichen von mehr als 600 Menschen. Die etwa 7000 Häftlinge, die von den Nationalsozialisten bei der Räumung des Lagers zurückgelassen wurden, waren dem Tode näher als dem Leben.
Einige Tage später findet die Untersuchungskommission der sowjetischen Armee Eisenbahnwaggons, beladen mit 368 820 Herrenanzügen, 836 255 Damenmänteln, 5525 Damenschuhen, 13 964 Teppichen, große Mengen Kinderkleidung und Hausrat und in einer Lederfabrik nahe des Lagers 7 Tonnen Menschenhaar.

Auschwitz, die oberschlesische Stadt in der Nähe von Krakau ist ein Synonym für den beispiellosen Völkermord der Nazi-Diktatur an europäischen Juden, Sinti und Roma und für die Ermordung Oppositioneller, Homosexueller und Behinderter.
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Rosa Robota
"Be strong and brave!"
(1921 - January 05, 1945)

Rosa Robota has gone down in Jewish Holocaust history as a heroine for her actions involving the smuggling of black powder ( schwartzpulver ) into Auschwitz. This product was made into explosives which were used during the famous Sonderkommando Revolt. Although this prisoner-uprising failed to stop the wheels of death at Auschwitz, Crematorium IV was successfully destroyed by the demolition. In addition, the prisoners in Auschwitz for a brief moment, showed the Germans they were capable of resistance - even in this most extreme of environments. The actions by Rosa were ones for which she gave up her life - for she was caught, interrogated, tortured and then executed by the SS in Auschwitz.

In November 1942 at age 21, Rosa (Polish name "Rojza") was "deported" from Ciechanow, Poland by rail and arrived at " Anus Mundi ": Auschwitz. Her entire immediate family had also been deported to the concentration camps and had died in the gas chambers. After two years of survival in Auscwitz, Rosa was working in a clothing-supply section of the camp complex when she was approached by Noah Zabladowicz, a member of the Jewish underground operating in the camp (Zabladowicz had known Rosa in her hometown). With Himmler's order to step-up the pace of the gassings in the summer of 1944, the rate that people being annihilated each day was astronomical: 46,000 in a 24 hour period on July 24 (the record for any of the camps). The burning pits were ablaze day and night because the crematoria in operation at the time could not keep up. These were the true nightmare days at Auschwitz: the Germans knew the war was lost, but the Fuhurer's desire as he himself predicted in 1939 to annihilate European Jewry was in full- swing.

Noah explained to Rosa that an uprising was to be staged and there were plans to blow up the crematoria and gas chambers in collaboration with outside partisans. Since Rosa had friends working in the Union Munitions Plant ( Weichsel-Union-Metalwerke ) located within the Auschwitz complex, she was asked to help obtain the schwartzpulver .
Rosa established about 20 contacts with women in the plant who were willing to cooperate. These women smuggled the schwartzpulver into the camp week after week by hiding it inside a trap-door in their dresses. The pockets could be "tripped" and the contents "dumped" if it appeared that the secret would be discovered. There was great risk because prisoners were sometimes searched when returning into the camps from the factories. The explosives, which looked like small wheels, were delivered to the underground. They were then assembled by a Russian POW munitions expert named Timofei Borodin who used sardine tins to make the final product. The completed devices were then hidden about the camp.

At one point, tragedy occurred - a few of the girls were caught and hanged. Somehow, the authorities did not extract adequate information from these heroines and the operation continued.
One of the many hiding places of the completed explosive devices was with the Sonderkommando , the special Jewish slave detail who handled and processed the corpses from the gas chambers day and night. The explosives were hidden in the carts & lorries used by this "special commando" to haul the corpses. Unfortunately, before the revolt could occur as a concerted effort, the Sonderkommando staged their own uprising with the explosives they had - for they had found out they were about to be gassed in their own turn (members of the this work group were normally selected out and gassed about every 3 months). Subsequently, on October 7, 1944, Crematorium IV was suddenly blown up and an unplanned haphazard revolt began. Four SS men (some records say 5) were killed and several wounded. In the panic and pandemonium, around 600 of the Sonderkommando were able to break through the wires and escape. Unfortunately, all who escaped were caught and shot - with the usual German efficiency and the ever-present cooperation of the people living in the surrounding area. A special Gestapo team was called in to investigate the revolt. The explosives were traced back to the Union plant and several suspects were rounded up. Using typical techniques of torture and "persuasion" under the auspices of the "Political Dept" (operated by the Gestapo), the names of Rosa and 3 other women were extracted. The names of the other women were: Regina Safirsztain (Sapirstein), Ella Gartner (Gertner) and Estucia Wajcblum (Esther Weisblum).

Using connections and at great risk, Noah Zabladowicz was able to visit Rosa in her prison-cell which was called "The Bunker" by those in the camp. He wanted to say farewell to his comrade - for he knew her fate was sealed, as did Rosa, herself. Noah also feared that Rosa had possibly "cracked" under the torture. He had to know if she had or was going to confess anything she knew. His worries were unfounded - Rosa had withstood horrible tortures and cruelty at the hands of her interrogators, but she had told them nothing.
As she lay on the dark floor, half-dead already, she could not even speak at first. When she finally gathered her strength, she told Noah what the torturers had done to her. Noah could hardly comprehend how Rosa had endured the horrendous torture - but she had not betrayed her comrades. She asked that the underground continue its work even in the face of such terrible consequences that she had endured - including the realization that she would be executed the next day. At 23 years old, Rosa and her 3 comrades were hanged before the camp population. Her last message was a note scratched on a piece of paper she managed to smuggle from her cell: " Hazak V' Amatz " : Be Strong & Brave.

After Rosa's death, the remaining crematoria continued to operate at full capacity. However, realizing defeat, the Germans began to hide the evidence of genocide at Auschwitz. On October 26, only weeks after Rosa's execution, Himmler himself ordered the dismantling of the remaining crematoria. The Russian advance into Germany was well underway and on January 20, 1945, the SS themselves set off demolition charges to finish-off the partially dismantled Crematoria II & III. Six days later, Crematorium V was likewise blown up. On the following day, the Russian Army liberated Auschwitz. There, the Russians found 1000's abandoned by the SS: 1200 survivors in the main camp, 5,800 in Birkenau and around 700 in Monowitz. Those remaining were primarily people who had been unable to walk the hurried death marches of Auschwitz prisoners west into the concentration camps of Germany's interior: Bergen-Belson, Buchenwald, Ravensbruck, etc. In these death marches, thousands of potential survivors of Auschwitz died with liberation only days away.

Of the millions killed Auschwitz, only a few "prisoners" have been immortalized. Rosa Robota will be remembered as one of the few who did not give up in the face of the utter "extremity" - but chose resistance.

Quelle: http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/rosa.html