The hanging of Roza Robota

[Yuli]

Many years ago, surely in 1991, there was a large photo displayed in the Auscwitz museum of the four Jewish women who were hung on January 5 1945 at the main camp for sabotage - Rosa Robota and her friends Ala Gertner, Estusia Wajcblum, and Regina Safirsztajn. They were Union workers implicated in the smuggling of explosives to the sonderkommanso at Birkenau. I could not find this photo on display at the museum nor could I find a copy on the Internet. I did inquire at the Auschwitz museum archive but they did not recall having such a photo. I wonder if anyone has knowledge about the whereabouts of this photo.
The hanging was also documented by the artist survivor Naomi Yudkowsky (Then Zofia Rosenstrauch) in 1945 shortly after liberation. http://www.infocenters.co.il/gfh/multim ... /29812.jpg

[Yuli]

I meant a photo of the young women after execution, as in the drawing.

[wm]

This drawing is not quite realistic. According to (admittedly conflicting) accounts two women were executed during the morning roll-call, and two during the evening roll-call. Presumably so the both the day and the night shift could see the execution.

In the last days of the camp the SS-men were well aware that they would be punished by the victorious Allies, and very touchy and nervous about it. So it's rather improbable that such photos were ever made.

Additionally because it was winter, both roll-calls happened at night.
At that time even high end cameras of that era were incapable to make pictures at night, especially that the artificial lighting they had there was quite dim by today's standards.

[Yuli]

Yes, there is ample evidence that there were two sessions to the executions, so that all women working in Union - day and night shifts - could witness Nazi justice.

The first execution of Ala Gertner and Regina Safirsztajn took place in front of the women of the Union night shift (and all other women in main camp) at about 16:00 (Oyrzynska, "The Hanging", p. 298-300; Herta Fuchs, "Camp Love", pages 74-75; ), so there may have been some day light. After that the shocked Union women left the grounds for work, and met on their way the women returning from day shift, who were taken to watch the second execution of Rosa Robota and Estusia Wajcblum. At that time it was already dark, but the area was lit with projectors ("Camp Love", p. 75 ; Oyrzynska, "The Hanging", p. 300). So there was ample light for photography. The first two bodies remained on the gallows until the second execution (e.g., Helena Hamermash "Memoirs" YadVashem O33.6383). So at the end of the ordeal the four women were hanging side by side. Later on the nurses from the revier were ordered to untie and remove the corpses from the gallows. The hanging left a huge impression on all spectators, even though they were used to see death and torture.

The artist Zofia Rosenstrauch was a witness to the execution and the drawing was made just a few months after the event took place. It appears very realistic - the huge Kapo (Jacob Kozalchik), Schutzhaftlagerführer Franz Hoessler who reportedly read the verdict and addressed the crowd, and Oberaufseherin Maria Mandel who stood by his side. There is no apparent reason to discredit it. Indeed, this drawing was submitted as evidence for atrocities in Eichmann's trial (amongst several other drawings of Rosentrauch).

Given that the event was a well prepared spectecle, it is not unlikely that photos were taken by some SS personnel. But may be not.

[wm]

Not to be an obstructionist or even a wrecker but I suppose Hoessler read and spoke before the execution, not during as the drawing shows.
They say the execution was in the women's camp, if true the barracks in the background are wrong, they should be parallel to the fence, not perpendicular.

The time of the execution seems not quite right, I've read the evening roll-call was always at 19:00.
16:00 would suggest they used a 3-shift schedule, but they certainly used 2-shift one. And by that time the morning roll-call was abolished.

From what I've found in old photography tutorials from the fifties common people using even good equipment weren't able to make satisfactory pictures in such circumstances like then, including at night, in the evening,or even on cloudy days. The had a simple rule of thumb for sunny days, the rest was hit and miss, mostly miss.
This would eliminate the possibility that a guard or a SS-man made the picture for his own use, especially that most of them couldn't afford such a hobby. And I suppose photos were forbidden anyway.

I suppose they used a still from some movie like this for example:

[Yuli]

The reason for the original post of this thread was to allocate a lost photo of the heroines Rosa Robota, Ala Gertner, Estusia Wajcblum, and Regina Safirsztajn hanging from the gallows after their execution. The person who reported seeing the photo at Auschwitz Museum in 1991 was an Auschwitz survivor who worked at Union factory and collaborated with the four women in smuggling the explosive powder. She visited the camp with other family members and they all confirm seeing a photo of four hanged women and recall the excitment of the survivor upon recognizing her friends. Hopefully the photo will be discovered one day.

wm wrote:
This would eliminate the possibility that a guard or a SS-man made the picture for his own use, especially that most of them couldn't afford such a hobby. And I suppose photos were forbidden anyway.

It is possible that the photo was taken by the Gestapo in order to appease Berlin headquarters, which was involved in the trial of these women. Note, this is just a speculation, but we do know of other executions which were filmed or photographed for the pleasure of Nazi leaders. On the other hand, we have all seen photos from places of execution where photography was strictly forbidden.

wm wrote:
I suppose Hoessler read and spoke before the execution, not during as the drawing shows. They say the execution was in the women's camp, if true the barracks in the background are wrong, they should be parallel to the fence, not perpendicular

Clearly, a single drawing cannot recapitulate all the details of the execution which lasted several hours. It certainly cannot depict the exact time at which Hoessler spoke. He may have spoken more then once, perhaps before each of the two sessions of the execution. Also, the fact that the artist drew the barracks in the background perpendicular to the fence and not in parralel is really a minor point. It would be a poor argument against the well established fact that the execution took place in the women's camp. There are multiple accounts of this execution agreeing about where and when it took place. It definitely was not during the usual evening roll call. The gallows were erected during the day and the camp was summened at about 16:00 to witness the double feature execution, as I described in my previous post (based on published accounts).

[Yuli]

wm wrote:
I suppose they used a still from some movie like this for example:

If it is meant or hinted that Zofia Rosenstrauch made the drawing of the execution of Rosa Robota, Ala Gertner, Estusia Wajcblum, and Regina Safirsztajn in Auschwitz I from a scene of a postwar movie, than this is completely wrong. She drew this scene in Warsaw immediately after her liberation in the spring of 1945, which was just a few months after witnessing the execution (the Nazis recognized her talents and employed her as a draftswoman at Auschwitz I). The photo displayed above is from the Polish movie Ostatni Etap, filmed in Birkenau and released in 1947. It depicts the execution of another heroine, Mala Zimetbaum (Marta Weiss in the film), which took place at Birkenau in September 1944.

[wm]

Really, it was based on true events? Rather loosely I would say, it looked like a full blown Stalinist propaganda piece.

I meant the photo in the Museum, Rosenstrauch is certainly a real eyewitness.
I think the photo never existed, such an important artifact can't be unknown, the number of surviving photos is minuscule, it would have been published a long time ago.

[Yuli]

wm wrote:
Really, it was based on true events? Rather loosely I would say, it looked like a full blown Stalinist propaganda piece.

Ostanti Etap (1947) - The Last Stage - is likely the most authentic movie about Birkenau. It was filmed on site 2 years after liberation. The script writers, the director and many of the actors were Polish survivors of the camp. There is a lot of information about this movie in the internet.

Mala Zimetbaum was multilingual and worked as translator in the camp, and as such appears also in the film. The escape, capture and execution of Mala Zimetbaum and Edward "Edek" Galiński (who was executed simultaneously at the men's camp) have been described in detail by many survivors.

In the camp Mala Zimetbaum was a close friend of the German political prisoner Gerda Schneider, a courageous woman who served for some time as Lagerelteste of the infirmiry. In many cases she defied the SS and risked her life to improve the conditions of fellow prisoners - Jews, Poles, Germans, all alike. She gave her own food to prisoners and inspired them with hope. They called her "Mamma" and "Mutti". According to testimonies Zimetbaum decided to escape after the Gestapo put Schneider in a bunker for an extended period and the prioners believed she was murdered.

But Schneider survived the war and after liberation wrote the script for Ostanti Etap together with Wanda Jakubowska who also directed the film. In the film she commemorates her friend Mala Zimetbaum. The story of Zimetbaum is authentic, including the slapping of the hangsman under the gallows. The final scene of the movie deviates from the true story so as not to show the tragic end of Zimetbaum (she suffered a horrible death).

And yes, Jakubowska was a communist and did inject some propaganda into the plot of Ostanti Etap, but (in my opinion) not to the extent that it compromises the film.

[wm]

I don't think it was Jakubowska, at that time it was the Party which dictated everything. It wasn't even propaganda, it was the inane Stalinist propaganda, with its extreme black and white view of reality.
Later realistics works like for example This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen were possible, but not earlier.

[michael mills]

The final scene of the movie deviates from the true story so as not to show the tragic end of Zimetbaum (she suffered a horrible death).

How was her death horrible?

[michael mills]

Later realistic works like for example This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen were possible, but not earlier.

Tadeusz Borowski's "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" does contain some probably fictional elements. One such occurs during his description of the arrival of a transport of Jews from East Upper Silesia, in 1943 if I remember correctly.

Borowski describes a young woman who leaves her young baby on the ramp and walks away, because she knows that all women with babies or young children are sent to the gas chamber. A Soviet POW, one of a number who are working on the ramp sorting the luggage left by the transportees, sees what she has done; he picks up the crying baby, takes it the mother and thrusts it into her arms, cursing her for abandoning it.

An SS officer has observed the scene; he says to the Soviet POW, "Well done! That is the way to treat unnatural mothers!"

It is most probable that the whole scene is fictional, invented by Borowski to make a moral point. In particular, the image of Soviet POWs working at the ramp seems to be unhistorical.

It is interesting that exactly the same scene occurs in the 1965 book "The Holocaust Kingdom", by the survivor Alexander Donat (nom de plume of Michal Berg), except that in that book it occurs during Donat's arrival at KL Lublin (Majdanek), and the Soviet POW is replaced by a Polish POW.

It is most probable that Donat had read Borowski's book, and inserted the (possibly fictional) scene into his own book. The difference is that Borowski does not claim to have actually witnessed the scene in his book, and acknowledges that he is writing a work of fiction designed to illustrate historical fact. By contrast, Donat presents the scene as something he witnessed himself on his arrival at Majdanek.

That is extremely significant, in that it shows that survivors have borrowed scenes from each other's accounts, even scenes that are most probably fictional.

By the way, Tadeusz Borowski died in 1951, ie well before the end of Stalinist rule in Poland.

[wm]

But it was published in 1959...

Certainly there are fictional elements there but the work is realistic. There are lots of unrealistic non-fictional accounts - hiding the truth, "improving" narration, or simply falsifying it.

btw it wasn't a Soviet POW, it was a sailor from Sevastopol.

[Yuli]

Michael mills wrote:
How was her death horrible?

Regarding the death of Mala Zimetbaum.
There are many testimonies about her fate and they are summarized in wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mala_Zimetbaum

It is agreed she (1) did not die by hanging at the gallows, rather that (2) she cut her veins with a razor blade and shouted revenge to the crowd of gathered women, that then (3) she slapped SS man (SS officer Ritter) who tried to remove the razor blade from her hand (also depicted in Ostanti Etap), and finally (4) that she was carried in a wheelbarrow to the crematorium to be punished by burning alive - a punishment bestowed by Maria Mandel. Whether the latter fate really happened - we probably will never know. The rumors were that she bled to death on the way to the crematorium (according to one account she was lead through the men's camp also before taken to the crematorium), that she was poisoned on the way, or that she was shot dead at the crematorium before thrown to the flames.

[michael mills]

If she cut her wrist properly ie with a vertical cut rather than a horizontal one across her wrist, then her death would have been very rapid.

Presumably the bodies of all prisoners hanged on the gallows were taken to the crematorium for disposal, so the fact that Zimetbaum was taken there after committing suicide by cutting her wrist would have been normal procedure. There does seem to be a lot of rumour surrounding the course of events after her suicide, the only verifiable fact apparently being that she was taken to the crematorium.

It seems to me most likely that she died from loss of blood or was finished off with a bullet.