How successful would an uprising at Auchwitz be?

I am asking about the guy in the Sabaton song 4859. I read about him he had organized a resistance movement inside the camp and had escaped to try to get weapons from the Allies and the Polish Free Army. None came, but what if they did manage to get weapons into the camp? How successful do you all think it could have been?

Here is the story about him
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki
 
Unlike Treblinka, which was a fairly small facility, where the "permanent" prisoner staff managed to plan an execute an escape (only around 70+ survived the attempt long enough to stay free although some died later in the war), the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex was quite large and consisted of slave labor facilities as well as the extermination center. An uprising in the slave labor area might let people in that section escape (some), actually being able to do much for the folks being delivered daily to the extermination area is not going to happen.
 
Unlike Treblinka, which was a fairly small facility, where the "permanent" prisoner staff managed to plan an execute an escape (only around 70+ survived the attempt long enough to stay free although some died later in the war), the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex was quite large and consisted of slave labor facilities as well as the extermination center. An uprising in the slave labor area might let people in that section escape (some), actually being able to do much for the folks being delivered daily to the extermination area is not going to happen.
Well that is better than what happened
 
Well that is better than what happened
How exactly?
If you were selected for labor then you were already ahead of the curve.
If you were smart about how you managed your existence within the constraints of the system, then you were likely to survive it...if you had the internal "guts" to tough it out.
This is documented extensively by the stories of all of those who endured Auschwitz/Birkenau.
If you were selected to die? No chance.
You died.
If you get involved with reactionary groups then you seriously degrade your probability of surviving the experience.
If you're already tattooed and in the system? Be smart, play the game, consider yourself fortunate.

It was such a "hit and miss" eventuality as to who lives and who goes straight to the gas chamber.

If you're getting off at Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek etc. then your chances are much reduced, compared to the Auschwitz folks.

These camps were straight out "Death Camps".
Therein lies the difference.
 
How exactly?
If you were selected for labor then you were already ahead of the curve.
If you were smart about how you managed your existence within the constraints of the system, then you were likely to survive it...if you had the internal "guts" to tough it out.
This is documented extensively by the stories of all of those who endured Auschwitz/Birkenau.
If you were selected to die? No chance.
You died.
If you get involved with reactionary groups then you seriously degrade your probability of surviving the experience.
If you're already tattooed and in the system? Be smart, play the game, consider yourself fortunate.

It was such a "hit and miss" eventuality as to who lives and who goes straight to the gas chamber.

If you're getting off at Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek etc. then your chances are much reduced, compared to the Auschwitz folks.

These camps were straight out "Death Camps".
Therein lies the difference.
We will never know how many people still died at those labor camps and would have survived if this uprising worked. There were still lots of people that died due to the labor conditions. Getting anyone out is nearly a miracle.
 
The time for resistance was, frankly, BEFORE you got on the trains. Even taking a kitchen knife to a soldier guarding the folks being marched to the train, or even out to the woods for a shooting, gives you a chance to grab his weapon and make a break for it, or cause enough disruption so others can escape. As malnourished as you might be in a ghetto, it was only going to get worse once transport had begun and this means even if you get outside the wire your ability to stay loose is much diminished.
 
There was an uprising at Auschwitz. Some weapons were smuggled in and one of the Sonderkommando units - the prisoners who were responsible for emptying the gas chambers of bodies and processing them through the crematoria - took on the SS. It was fairly late on - 1944? - and at least one of the crematoria was blown up. They were all massacred but those units were marked for death anyway.
 

nbcman

Donor
There was an uprising at Auschwitz. Some weapons were smuggled in and one of the Sonderkommando units - the prisoners who were responsible for emptying the gas chambers of bodies and processing them through the crematoria - took on the SS. It was fairly late on - 1944? - and at least one of the crematoria was blown up. They were all massacred but those units were marked for death anyway.
It was 7 October 1944:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-revolt-at-auschwitz-birkenau
 
This sad story demonstrates a few unfortunate realities. Any revolt by inmates at a camp amount to a desperation attempt to take a few Nazis with you in to death, and especially in this case the Sonderkommando knew they were already dead. Secondly, and even sadder, is the reality that in the areas where the death camps larger KZL were located a significant percentage of the local population actively assisted the Nazis in rounding up escaped Jewish prisoners and often non-Jewish resistance groups/partisans refused to accept or aid Jews.
 
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