Ester Wajcblum

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Ester Wajcblum , known as Estera , Estuscha , Estusia or Toszka ( January 16, 1924 in Warsaw - January 6, 1945 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a Polish resistance fighter who was involved in the armed uprising of the Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoner special command in October 1944 . She was betrayed and hanged on January 6, 1945 at the roll call square in Auschwitz together with Ala Gertner , Rózia Robota and Regina Safirsztajn . It was the last public execution in Auschwitz, three weeks before the liberation of the camp.

biography

Ester Wajcblum was the eldest of three daughters of Jakub Wajcblum and his wife Rebeka, née Jaglom, who were both deaf . Her older sister was called Sabina , the younger one, born in 1928, was called Hana , Hanka and also Anna . Deafness was not passed on to children. Jakub's father owned a factory ( Snycerpol ) in which wooden handicrafts were produced. Deaf people worked here, and the sisters' nanny was also deaf. Products from Jakub's factory were presented at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 and again at the World Exhibition in New York in 1939 . The Wajcblum family lived on Mila Street, part of the Warsaw Ghetto from mid-1940 . Sabina was able to flee with her future husband in time. The rest of the family stayed in the ghetto. Hana was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement , the Warsaw group took part in the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto . But Hana decided to stay with her parents and not fight. In May 1943, was carried deportation of the family to the Majdanek concentration camp . The journey in cattle wagons took two days, there was neither water nor food, and almost a third of the deportees died during the journey . When they arrived in Majdanek, the parents were murdered immediately.

Ester Wajcblum and her sister Hana were transferred to Auschwitz in September 1943 . Ester had to do forced labor in the ammunition factory of the Union-Werke , where grenades were manufactured on the assembly line around the clock . She worked twelve hours a day in the so-called powder room together with a close friend, Ruzia Gruenapfel . The two were often mistaken for sisters. The factory, in which 1,000 female and male prisoners worked, was of considerable importance to the Auschwitz underground movement. A Jewish group was established here, which played a central role in the uprising. At the head of the female cell was Rózia Robota , who, like Ester Wajcblum, also came from Ciechanów. In March 1944, Ester Wajcblum joined the underground organization and a chain of smuggling black powder began in very small portions, which reached through various messengers to the men who used them to build explosives. At the beginning of the chain was the powder room, where Genia Fischer and Regina Safirsztajn worked alongside the two women . Two full spoons could be collected and set aside every day. The powder was hidden in small pieces of cloth that the women smuggled out in bras or bags. In some cases, when it came to body checks, it had to be spread a little. This succeeded in the waiting time. The resistance work was so well organized that the SS guards did not become suspicious for almost a year. Years later, a fellow prisoner reported:

“Around the spring of 1943 a transport came from Warsaw, including two sisters - Ester and Hanna Wajcblum. [...] They were forbidden to meet other inmates in the camp. Nevertheless, I had secret conversations with both sisters. One day Ester Wajcblum handed me a small, light package with the request that I keep it until she or someone else she is going to send picks it up. A few days later Rosa Robota, who worked in the clothing store, came to me and asked for the package. This was repeated several times. […] In the package, as I later learned, was the gunpowder smuggled out by the Union works. Ester never spoke about it, only once she said to me: We could free ourselves from this hell ... "

- German Resistance Memorial Center

On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando rebelled and with the help of black powder, crematorium IV was so badly destroyed that it could no longer be used. However, there was betrayal by camp spies and arrests. Ester, Rózia Robota, Regina Safirsztajn and Ala Gertner were locked up in a bunker for months and interrogated and tortured. The four women kept the names of other participants secret. The four women were hanged on January 6, 1945 . The entire women's camp had to attend the execution , and Hana also witnessed the death of her sister.

For many years the identity of Regina Safirsztajn and Ester Wajcblum was unknown. They were only called "Regina" and "Toszka" in the literature. In the shadow of the four executed were the at least eleven previously known resistance fighters who also risked their lives to supply the resistance fighters with explosives. According to Caroline Pokrzywinski, these were - in addition to Hana Wajcblum :

   

The Auschwitz uprising, which affected the murder machinery, likely resulted in the survival of many prisoners who otherwise would have been gassed by the camp SS .

Shortly before her execution, Ester Wajcblum had made her fellow prisoner Marta Cigé promise to take care of her sister Hana. Indeed, after her sister was executed, Hana attempted suicide several times. She was hospitalized and Marta Cigé did not leave her side. Hana was liberated in 1945 , emigrated to Israel and was called Anna Heilman after her marriage in 1947 .

The older sister Sabina fled to the Soviet Union in time and married the Pole Mieczyslaw Zielinski.

literature

  • Fritz Bauer Institute , Study and Documentation Center on the History and Effects of the Holocaust (Dossier No. 1): The Uprising of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau , accessed on April 19, 2016.
  • Lore Shelley: The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munition Factory Through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers . Lanham, University Press of America, 1996. 421 pages. ISBN 0-7618-0194-4 (English; A description of the "Union" munition factory in Auschwitz through the eyes of 36 former prisoners. It encompasses the women's resistance movement in the camps, recounts how gun-powder was smuggled to the Sonderkommando for the October 7th uprising, and reveals post-war coverup of the story.)
  • Brana Gurewitsch: Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the Holocaust , Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8173-0931-4 (English)
  • Shmuel Krakowski: The unimaginable fight , in: Barbara Distel (ed.): Women in the Holocaust , Gerlingen 2001, pp. 289-300.

Web links

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gideon Greif , Itamar Levin: Uprising in Auschwitz. The revolt of the Jewish "Sonderkommando" on October 7, 1944 . Translated from the Hebrew by Beatrice Greif. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22473-8 , p. 109
  2. ↑ Carol Ann Rittner, John K. Roth: Different Voices , Women and the Holocaust, Paragon House 1993, ISBN 1-55778-503-1 , pp. 132-140.
  3. ^ Ester Wajcblum , biography in: German Resistance Memorial Center
  4. ^ Martin Gilbert : The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy , Rosetta Books 2014, p. 38.
  5. ^ Hermann Langbein : People in Auschwitz , S. Fischer 2016.
  6. ↑ a b Caroline Pokrzywinski: Unheard Voices: The Story of the Women Involved in the Sonderkommando Revolt , May 15, 2014, accessed on April 19, 2016.
  7. ↑ Joshua Heilman with his wife, Hanka Wajcblum Heilman, and Abraham, a friend, during the War of Independence . Photograph from May 4, 1949 in Israel. In: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
personal data
SURNAME Wajcblum, Ester
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish resistance fighter in Auschwitz concentration camp, victim of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1945
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp