Fighting Auschwitz
by Jozef Garlinski
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jozef GarlinskiEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1975-09-12
ISBN: 0449225992
Publisher: Fawcett
Book Reviews of Fighting Auschwitz
Book Review: "Life" at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Clarification of the Sonderkommandos' Revolt vis-a-vis the Polish Underground
Summary: 5 Stars
Jozef (Joseph) Garlinski, a member of the Polish Underground, former inmate of Auschwitz, and subsequently a historian, has written an invaluable account about this Nazi German concentration and death camp. There is also an extensive listing of specifically-named individuals. WARNING: Some of Garlinski's descriptions of conditions at Auschwitz, and of Gestapo tortures inflicted upon Underground suspects, are quite graphic, and may be upsetting to sensitive readers.
Some forms of resistance at Auschwitz were particularly clever. For instance, certain Polish inmates developed a tiny "bacteriological warfare" lab, which enabled them to culture typhus-bearing lice in order to infect some German guards (pp. 53-54, 141). There were a number of daring escapes conducted by inmates, notably the Poles (pp. 102-103). The first open revolt at the camp was also conducted by Poles (pp. 103-107).
Nazi policies towards both Poles and Jews were strictly utilitarian in nature. After the specter of German defeat became increasingly conceivable in 1942, and all able-bodied workers had become sorely needed for the war effort, the Germans spared some Jews for forced labor, and also discontinued the collective killings of Polish inmates as reprisals for revolts and escapes (p. 101, 147).
Garlinski touches upon the gassings of Zamosc-area Poles (pp. 144-145). He also discusses the sterilization experiments conducted on Auschwitz inmates by the Germans, and places them in the context of German exterminatory genocidal plans: "Some nations, such as the Jews, and later the Poles and other Slavs, were to be completely, or almost completely, eliminated..." (p. 137).
The Polish Underground (AK), throughout German-occupied Poland, had very few weapons in 1943 (p. 161). While not considered in this light, this helps the reader understand why the Underground gave only a modest number of weapons to the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. Garlinski also reports that most of the German-serving Polish informers, at least at Auschwitz, had initially been loyal Poles who had been broken by Gestapo tortures (p. 138, 273). One wonders how many of the Poles who betrayed fugitive Jews elsewhere also fit into this category.
Two Slovak Jews, Walter Rosenberg and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from Birkenau with the help of a Polish Underground cell in the camp (p. 233). They were later assisted by local Poles in their flight to Slovakia. Eventually, they informed some skeptical Slovak Jewish officials about the extermination of Jews at Birkenau. In time, Rosenberg met with the papal Nuncio regarding the same.
The Sonderkommandos of Birkenau, mostly Jews but also some Poles and Russians (p. 244), were forced to assist the Germans in the gassing of inmates and the subsequent plundering and cremation of the corpses. The Sonderkommandos were periodically killed off by the Germans in order to eliminate eyewitnesses. For this reason, as the gassing of the Hungarian Jews was drawing to an end in 1944, the Sonderkommandos planned a revolt with the outside assistance of the Polish Underground.
However, the Sonderkommandos' desperate fight was not itself joined by the Polish Underground, and the latter is sometimes blamed, in modern Holocaust materials, for "abandoning the Sonderkommandos". In actuality, the unexpected arrival of a German guard forced the Sonderkommandos to kill him and to begin the revolt prematurely. Garlinski comments: "Unfortunately the most important part of the plan, which might have afforded some chance of success, was not put into effect, as the fighting broke out during the day instead of by night. Hope also vanished for any help from the partisan units, which had not been informed and could not possibly move in the vicinity of the camp during daylight." (p. 248).
Finally, Garlinski discusses potential Polish Undergound action in the liberation of Auschwitz at the time of the approach of the Red Army. It was decided against it unless the Germans had begun to systematically kill all the inmates. This decision owed to the fact that the German garrison at and near Auschwitz was impossibly strong (pp. 173-174). Consequently, a Polish Underground attack could, at best, rescue a few hundred prisoners while condemning many thousands of others to death (p. 253).
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