On October 7, 1944, Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau staged the only known revolt in the camp's history, and Greek...

On October 7, 1944, Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau staged the only known revolt in the camp's history, and Greek Jews were at the center of it. Estimates vary, but a 2009 Greek foreign ministry publication titled "Greeks in Auschwitz-Birkenau" claims 300 Greeks participated in the uprising, with 60 confirmed killed and 26 surviving. The revolt was carried out by members of the Sonderkommando, Jewish inmates forced by the Nazis to remove bodies from the gas chambers and operate the crematoria. The Nazis routinely gassed Sonderkommando members every four months to eliminate witnesses to the genocide, replacing them with new arrivals. The prisoners who led the revolt knew their scheduled deaths were approaching. Weeks before the uprising, around 200 Sonderkommando members had been tricked into entering the gas chambers and murdered, leaving survivors even more desperate. Their plan was to smuggle gunpowder from an SS-run munitions factory inside the camp, use it to destroy the crematoria and gas chambers, and escape toward the advancing Soviet army. On the day of the revolt, 451 Sonderkommando members were killed by the Nazis, including several who had briefly broken free. Despite the crushing death toll, the prisoners did destroy one of the crematoria used to burn victims' bodies. It was the only instance of armed resistance inside Auschwitz. In total, 67,000 Greek Jews, 86 percent of the country's prewar Jewish community, were killed in the Holocaust, most of them at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Their names are recorded. Their resistance was real. #Greece #Holocaust #NeverForget