Abstract
Resistance was virtually impossible in the labor-intensive concentration camps throughout Germany and in the extermination camps of Poland. In the concentration camps, the Häftlinge (prisoners) had their bodies eroded as they were worked to death as Untermenschen.1 The manual labor, often consisting often- to twelve-hour work days, took its toll on the prisoners. The inmates also suffered from hunger, thirst, fatigue, and physical beatings. Diseases spread among the camp members, who constantly suffered from typhus, dysentery, and diarrhea. Charlotte Delbo, a survivor of Auschwitz, recalled that a body eroded with disease was predominantly concerned with survival (and certainly not resistance): “One can turn a human being into a skeleton gurgling with diarrhea, without time or energy to think.”2 Inmates were also weakened by being forced to stand outside for hours during roll calls, exposing their bodies to brutally cold temperatures, snow, or rain. Prisoners were always covered with mud, grease, blood, and excrement without having access to proper sanitary facilities. Those who lost the ability to bathe and cleanse themselves soon lost their dignity as well.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For a discussion of the philosophy behind the Nazi desire to destroy the prisoners as impure bodies that threatened the Volk, see Gene A. Plunka, Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 71–76.
Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and After, trans. Rosette C. Lamont (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 168.
Bruno Bettelheim, Surviving and Other Essays (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 102.
For details about the Babi Yar uprising, see Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War (New York: Henry Holt, 1987), 612–614.
At Mauthausen, on February 3, 1945, several hundred condemned men of Block 20 escaped after using fire extinguishers to blind SS guards. Only twenty-two of the escapees were not recaptured. See Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 718–719.
For more information about the revolt at Sachsenhausen, see Lucien Steinberg, Not as a Lamb: The Jews against Hitler, trans. Marion Hunter (Hants, UK: Saxon House, 1974), 50–53.
For the most thorough discussion of the preparation for the revolt at Treblinka, see Jean-François Steiner, Treblinka, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967).
Raul Hilberg estimated that there were nearly seven hundred Jewish inmates in Treblinka, but he does not specify an exact date. See Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. ed. (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 915. However, Leni Yahil notes that at the time of the revolt, there were sixty conspirators among the twelve hundred Jewish inmates. See
Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945, trans. Ina Friedman and Haya Galai (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 484.
Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 189.
Ainsztein’s account of the revolt is the most detailed and is derived from courtroom testimony, so we may assume that his figure of six hundred escapees is the most accurate. His estimates are based on those who revolted in two camps in Treblinka. However, other historians have claimed that the number of escapees is far less than the six hundred documented by Ainsztein. Martin Gilbert asserts that “more than one hundred and fifty succeeded in escaping.” See Gilbert, The Holocaust, 597 Gilbert’s figures could be based upon Samuel Rajzman’s testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on March 25–26, 1945. Rajzman, who participated in the Treblinka revolt, remembered only 150–200 escapees. See Samuel Rajzman, “Uprising in Treblinka,” in They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, ed. Yuri Suhl (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), 132. This is the same number cited by Hilberg, whose statistics rely largely on German records and trial testimony. See Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 916.
For details about the revolt, see Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe, 748–769; Steinberg, Not as a Lamb, 271–278; and Alexander Pechersky, “Revolt in Sobibor,” in The Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, ed. Yuri Suhl (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), 7–50. In 1987, a British-made television film Escape from Sobibor, was aired by CBS. The film, directed by Jack Gold, featured performances by Alan Arkin as Leon Feldhendler and Rutger Hauer as Alexander Pechersky.
For detailed information about the escapes from Auschwitz, see Erich Kulka, “Five Escapes From Auschwitz,” in They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, ed. Yuri Suhl (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), 196–218.
See Erich Kulka, Escape from Auschwitz (South Hadley, Ma: Bergin & Garvey, 1986).
For more information about the life of Roza Robota, see Yuri Suhl, “Rosa Robota—Heroine of the Auschwitz Underground,” in They Fought Back: The Story of the Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe, ed. Yuri Suhl (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), 219–225.
Copyright information
© 2012 Gene A. Plunka
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Plunka, G.A. (2012). Resistance in the Extermination Camps: Susan B. Katz’s Courage Untold. In: Staging Holocaust Resistance. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137000613_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137000613_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35055-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-00061-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Theatre & Performance CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)