We, the Dead, Accuse!

 

No crosses rot upon our graves,

No headstones gently lean

No lattice wrought or twined wreaths

No bowing angels screen. 

No willow tree or gold-writ rhyme

No candle never quenched 

We rot in pits, white-splashed with lime

With rain our bones are drenched

Our whitened skulls without defense

Trembled on barbed wire fence

Our scattered ash fills may an urn

Ans still the bodies burn.

A chain we are, which the earth wears
And the wind blows like seed,
We count the days and months and years
We know not time nor speed.
Our numbers grow by day and night
We swell beneath your ground
And upward press until our might
Will burst our earthly bound.
Then skull to skull and bone to bone
We 'll mount the judgment throne
And bring to all the fearful news:
Lo! We, the Dead, Accuse!

The following is one of two poems written on 8.3.1944 by an unknown female Jew prisoner of Czech nationality, on her way to crematorium in Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The note with the poems handed by a Sonderkommando prisoner and then smuggled out of the camp to Prague. 

Στο μνήμα μας επάνω δε θα βρεις σταυρό,
ούτε πολυκαιρίσιες πλάκες ραγισμένες.
Δε θα βρεις άνθη, μήτε κάγκελα από σίδερο χυτό,
ούτε και Χερουβείμ με παναγνές μορφές θλιμένες.

Κεριά δε στάζουν πάνω μας δάκρυ καφτό.
Κι ο ίσκιος του κυπαρισιού είναι μακριά μας.
Μ' άσβεστη ποτισμένοι λιώνουμε στους λάκκους μας σωρό
και μόν' ο άνεμος σφυρίζει αγριωπός στα κόκκαλα μας.

Άσπρα κρανία κρεμασμένα δω κι εκεί
πάνω στους φράχτες με το σύρμα τ' αγκαθένιο.
Κι η στάχτη μας σκορπά και χάνεται κι αυτή
στους πέντε ανέμους - σύννεφο ασημένιο.

Σ' απόκοσμη διαβαίνουμε αράδα σκοτεινή,
σπόροι που μας κυλά το φύσημα τ' ανέμου.
Κι όλο μετρούμε: μήνες - χρόνοι μακρυνοί,
καθώς, προσμένουμε το τέλος του πολέμου.

Στρώμα το στρώμα αυξαίνουμε και πιο πολύ
μέσα στου λάκκου τ' αγριο, πηχτό σκοτάδι.
Αδιάκοπα η σάρκα μας χορταίνει σας τη γή.
Θε να ρθει όμως η στιγμή να σπάσει η θύρα του Άδη.

Τότε θα βγούμε - λιτανεία φοβερή 

σκελετωμένα κόκκαλα. Κι όπως θα προχωρούμε
Θε ν' αντηχήσει βροντερή η άγρια μας κραυγή:
"Εμείς, οι τραγικοί νεκροί, κατηγορούμε!"

αποδοσή: Ν. Παπανδρέου, 1979

 

Noon, 27.1.1945. Units of the 322nd Rifle Division, part of the 60th Army, of Soviet Red Army reaches the main gate of Auschwitz I concentration camp. There they found 7000 inmates in unbearable condition and 600 dead bodies. They were all left behind as 9 days earlier (18.1.1945) the SS ordered the evacuation to the west of the aprx. 60000 prisoners of Auschwitz Complex camps. One of the greatest insult in the history of Man was over...

For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, 

where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, 

mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe.

Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940 - 1945

Εις Μνήμειν. / In Memory.

  

ps. All photos are from the Auschwitz I & Auschwitz II - Birkenau Memorial site.

Taken on Sunday 9th of October 2016.

The Revolt.

...But he who has seen the slain

Writhing in final pain

Under the blood-drenched sword.

He knows of better realms...

Saturday, 7th October 1944, Auschwitz camp was upset. The silence of the sunny autumn day was interrupted by sudden gunshots and the siren's howling, which this time was not a warning for another air raid, as usual. A column of fire and smoke was coming out from the building of crematorium no. 4. Terrific news were spreading across the whole camp: The Sonderkommando prisoners mutinied! They rebelled with guns in their arms and they fight against the SS.

Cremation of bodies by the Sonderkommando,
Auschwitz - Birkenau, August 1944.
 (Photo taken secretly by the camp's resistance network) 

The revolt was preparing for a long time before October 7th. Already since summer of 1944 member of Sonderkommando were gathering tools, ammunition, grenades and light weapons for a possible future assault against the SS. The leader of this first attempt for organizing, a Lithuanian prisoner (who was serving as a Kapo) called Kaminsky, had been betrayed and executed by the Nazis. The operation had been postponed for a few weeks but it continued after a while when the circumstances allowed it. As the Soviet Army was advancing towards Krakow the, almost 800, prisoners working in Sonderkommando were a serious threat for the administration of the camp. These prisoners were the only (not Nazi) eyewitnesses of the extermination process which was taking place in Auschwitz - Birkenau. They couldn't work anywhere else inside the camp and no one should be stay alive. The SS were saying ironically that they have secured a ticket to paradise! 

The underground resistance movement which was active in the Auschwitz complex was planning a general uprising involving every part of the camp. The Sonderkommando prisoners, as they had nothing to loose, were the chosen ones to light the fire of this uprising, but they had to wait few more days before all the necessary preparations were completed. 

The exterminate fury of the Nazis changed the plan of the resistance's organisation. Sonderkommando had to act immediately as it was facing its total extinction! Already 300 prisoners had been secretly exterminated on September 29th and the same fate was waiting the rest of them few days later... The morning of 7.10.1944 the resistance group had a secret meeting about the last details of the revolt. A Kapo wearing a green armband (stands for native Germans, common criminals) comes accidentally into the room. That was! Some prisoners threw him alive into the oven as others took out the hidden weapons and got defensive positions in the small forest behind the building. Crematorium no.4 had already been in flames! 

The revolt had begun! Prisoners from Crematorium no.2 got into the fight too. For the rest hours few hundred prisoners were facing heroically almost 3000 SS units. 200 hundreds prisoners will fall in that battle for freedom and only few will manage to escape the camp...

The next days a true witch-hunt will take place in Auschwitz. The SS wanted to find out any possible information related with the organisation of the revolt. They failed completely... Noteworthy was the attitude of four female prisoners working in the nearby "Union" factory (owned by the Krupp family). They were accused for smuggling gunpowder to the resistance members. Despite months of beatings and rape and electric shocks to their genitals, the only names given up by the women are those of already dead Sonderkommando. On January 5, 1945, the four brave women are hanged in front of the assembled women’s camp. One of them, Roza Robota shouts “Be strong and be brave” as the trapdoor drops.

Women being taken to the gas chamber,
Auschwitz - Birkenau, August 1944.
(Photo taken secretly by the camp's resistance network) 

The revolt in the Birkenau crematoriums was the only armed conflict took place in Auschwitz and one of the few known acts of resistance that happened in the huge network of the Nazis concentration camps. The political and moral impact of this action was enormous. It raised the spirit of the inmates and made them to trust their own powers. Their belief to victory became stronger. The revolt showed that even a small group of prisoners, despite their condition, can face thousands fully armed SS. As the Nazis couldn't reinforce the SS guard of the camp, they forced to abandoned their primary plan for the massive extermination of the prisoners and they evacuated the camp instead.We can claim, even if it can not been proved, that the revolt of Sonderkommando put a premature end to the extermination process of this death factory, saving thousands of lives.  

... And yet i 'd rather die,

Your spittle in my eye,

Rather die as a coward,

Than have blood on my hands...