Many people today have this two stories confused, but as a person who has studied this history for years I want to make clear that they were actually two separate acts of bravery.
First there was Franceska Mann in 1943. She was a beautiful dancer, originally from Poland. When she was herded to the room near the gas chambers, one of the cruel guards named Schillinger instructed her to remove her clothes. She didn't just give up. She influenced him with her dancing movements and hit him with her shoe and grabbed his own pistol to shoot him. He died from those wounds. It resulted in a riot . . . those poor women decided to fight even when they knew that the end was near.
Then, almost a year later to the day in 1944, there was the Gunpowder Plot. This was a group effort done by such women as Roza Robota and her friends who worked in the munitions factory. These brave girls smuggled tiny bits of gunpowder ever single day inside their clothes. They gave it to the men that worked in the crematoria. On October 7th they actually succeeded in blowing-up one of the buildings.
The Nazis eventually caught the four women. Even though they were treated very badly they never said any secret once. They were killed just a little while before the final liberation of the camp. It breaks my heart to think about it but we have to remember their names. Franceska and the factory girls showed us that even in the darkest place on earth the human spirit can not be totally broken. Continue reading
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