Roza Robota (1921,
CiechanówCiechanów is a town in north-central Poland with 45,900 inhabitants . It is situated in Masovian Voivodeship . It was previously the capital of Ciechanów Voivodeship.-History:...
–January 5, 1945), referred to in other sources as
Rojza,
Rozia, or
Rosa, was one of four women hanged in the
Auschwitz concentration campAuschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps and extermination camps, operational during World War II.The camp took its German name from the hosting town of Oświęcim. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Oświęcim was annexed by Nazi Germany and...
for their role in the
SonderkommandoSonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners who aided with the killing process during The Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommando consisted almost entirely of Jews, and should not be confused with the SS-Sonderkommandos which were ad hoc units formed from various SS offices...
revolt of October 7, 1944. Born in
CiechanówCiechanów is a town in north-central Poland with 45,900 inhabitants . It is situated in Masovian Voivodeship . It was previously the capital of Ciechanów Voivodeship.-History:...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, she was a member of the
Hashomer HatzairHashomer Hatzair is a Socialist-Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine.-Early formation:Hashomer Hatzair came into being as a result of...
ZionistZionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...
-
socialistSocialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...
youth movementA Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel...
, and joined that movement's underground upon the
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
occupation. She was transported to Auschwitz in 1942, and was sent to the adjacent
BirkenauBirkenau may mean the following.* Birkenau , a municipality in the Odenwald located in the South of Hesse in Germany.* The German name for the Polish Brzezinka, known as the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II...
labor camp for women, where she was involved in the underground dissemination of news among the prisoners.
Robota worked sorting clothing at the Birkenau
Effektenlager adjacent to Crematorium IV of Auschwitz, where the bodies of gas chamber victims were burned. She apparently smuggled
gunpowderGunpowder, also called black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. It burns rapidly, producing volumes of hot solids and gases which can be used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks. The term gunpowder also refers broadly to any...
collected by women in the munitions factory, transferring it to a member of the
Sonderkommando named Wrobel, who was also active in the resistance. The explosives were used to manufacture weapons and to blow up the crematorium during the Sonderkommando revolt. In her work she was assisted by Hadassa Zlotnicka, another native of Ciechanów, whom Robota apparently enlisted in the resistance. Together, they were able to smuggle approximately three teaspoons of gunpowder per day.
Robota and three other women —
Ala GertnerAla Gertner , referred to in other sources as Alla, Alina, Ella, and Ela, was one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for her role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944.-Early life:Gertner was born in Będzin, Poland, one of three children in a prosperous Jewish family...
, Estusia Wajcblum, and Regina Szafirsztajn — were arrested by the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
and interrogated under torture, but they refused to reveal the names of other women who participated in the smuggling operation. They were hanged on January 5, 1945. According to eyewitness accounts, they all shouted "Revenge!" or "Be Strong" . to the crowd of assembled inmates before they died. Rosa was 23.
(Some say they shouted, "Chazak V'amatzz, --'Be strong and have courage', the phrase that God uses to encourage Joshua with after the death of Moses).
They had managed to blow off the roof of only one of the crematoria, yet the Nazis knew that the advancing Russian Army was very close to liberating the camp. It was clear to the Nazis that all evidence of the war-time atrocities had to be concealed, so the Germans destroyed the other four crematoria themselves. As a result of the bravery of these four women, countless Jewish deaths were averted.
Rosa Robota's memory lives on, in the naming of the Rosa Robota Gates at Montefiore Randwick (Sydney, Australia). This initiative was made possible by Sam Spitzer, a resistance fighter during World War II and now a resident of Sydney. Mr Spitzer named the gates in honour of his war time hero, Robota, and his late wife, Margaret. Mr Spitzer's sister was in Auschwitz with Rosa Robota.
Cousins of Roza Robota currently reside on Long Island, NY. In August 2004, one of her second cousins was born and named Rose, in her memory.
Further reading
- Gurewitsch, Brana. Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the Holocaust, The University of Alabama Press, 1998. (ISBN 0-8173-0952-7)
- Shelley, Lore. The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munition Factory Through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers, University Press of America, 1996. (ISBN 0-7618-0194-4)