Anna Heilman
Encyclopedia
Anna Heilman, born Hana Wajcblum (1 December 1928 - 1 May 2011), referred to in other sources as Hanka or Chana Weissman, was one of the surviving Auschwitz ex-prisoners who were in on the plot to blow up the crematoria. She, her sister Estusia, and other women smuggled gunpowder out of the Union munitions factory and passed it from insider to insider until it reached the Sonderkommando
. The women involved in the gunpowder smuggling chain include Roza Robota
(who had direct contact with the men of the Sonderkommando), Ala Gertner
, Regina Szafirztajn, Rose Grunapfel Meth
, Hadassa Zlotnicka, Marta Bindiger, Genia Fischer, Inge Frank, Ilse, and Antichka.
Anna was born on December 1, 1928 into a middle class
assimilated Jewish family in Warsaw
, Poland, to Jakub and Rebeka Wajcblum, who were both deaf. They had 2 children before Anna: first Sabina, then Estusia (all 3 of their children had normal hearing). Jakub was born in Warsaw in 1887. He owned a factory (Snycerpol) in Warsaw that employed deaf workers to make wooden handicrafts. He went to the Paris World Exposition to exhibit the factory's products in 1936. His products were also shown at the New York World's Fair
in 1939. Rebeka was born in 1898 in Pruzany, Poland. She was from a wealthy family. When the children were younger, they had a nanny who was also deaf.
Sabina escaped the Holocaust with her former tutor and future husband, Mietek. They survived by fleeing to the Soviet Union
and subsequently settled in Sweden
.
Anna, Estusia and their parents lived in an area that became part of the Warsaw Ghetto
, in an apartment building on 38 Mila Street, just down the street from 18 Mila Street, headquarters of the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa
- Jewish Fighting Organization), led by Mordecai Anielewicz.
Anna was part of Hashomer Hatzair, a youth movement. She had a dilemma. She wanted to stay with them and fight in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but she also wanted to stay with her parents. She finally chose to stay with her parents.
Anna, Estusia and their parents were among the last deportees from the Warsaw Ghetto when they were taken to Maidanek in May 1943. Anna's parents were murdered upon arrival at Maidanek. Estusia and Anna were sent to Auschwitz in September 1943.
In her online memoir, Heilman claims it was her own idea to smuggle the powder to the Sonderkommando. A quote from her online memoir: Out of this friendship evolved the ideas of resistance. I can't tell you who initiated it ... The idea was what could we do, each one of us, to resist? I thought, "You are working in the Pulverraum. How about taking gunpowder?" We started to talk about the idea. The gunpowder was within our reach. We thought, "We can use it!" Somebody in the group knew that the Sondrkommando was preparing resistance. We said, "Let us give the gunpowder to them!"
They found many ways to smuggle powder out. Some ways that Anna and others used was pouches on the inside of their dresses, knots of their headscarves, and under their fingernails. They were regularly searched. When they saw from a distance that they would be searched, they would let the powder out onto the ground, and mingled it into the soil so that it could not be seen.
Estusia was betrayed when Ala Gertner told an SS officer she had befriended and trusted about the plot. She, Roza Robota, Regina Stafirstajn, and Ala Gertner were taken to the "Bunker" inside the main camp and tortured for months. They never gave up Anna's name. They only gave names of Sonderkommando members who were already dead.
Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza were hanged on January 5, 1945, just under two weeks before the advancing Soviet Red Army reached Auschwitz. The entire women's camp was forced to watch the executions. The women were executed as Jewish resistance fighters, under direct orders from Berlin. The four were murdered as were millions of others, but their act of defiance and courage forced the Nazis to recognize them as individuals, as they wanted to make an example out of these four to make sure no one else would do what they did.
Auschwitz was brutally evacuated on January 18, 1945 as the Soviet Army continued its advance towards Germany.
Hana and Estusia had a special friendship with Marta Bindiger, a Slovakian Jew who worked in "Kanada" an area in Auschwitz where the possessions stolen from the prisoners were stored in vast warehouses. While Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza were awaiting execution, Estusia sneaked a note to Marta asking her to look after her sister Hana so that she could die easier. Marta wrote back promising never to abandon Hana, and kept her promise. They stayed together, even on the death march to Ravensbrück where they stayed until February, 1945, and then at Neustadt-Glewe
until the Soviets liberated them on May 2, 1945.. They became lifelong friends.
After a brief stay in Belgium, Anna emigrated in May 1946 to Palestine
under the British Mandate. Anna was reunited with Sabina, met her extended family, and finished high school. On March 7, 1947, Anna married Joshua Heilman. Joshua had left Poland for British Mandate Palestine to pursue his university studies one week before the outbreak of World War II
. His younger sister Rose was also interned at Auschwitz and survived the war. The rest of his family was murdered.
Anna obtained a degree in social work in Israel. Anna and Joshua had two daughters. Joshua went to the United States as a Hebrew teacher and brought the rest of the family to Boston in 1958. The family emigrated to Ottawa, Canada in 1960 where Joshua found work as a Hebrew school principal. Anna worked with The Children's Aid Society in Ottawa as a bilingual (English-French) social worker until she retired as supervisor of the English-French unit in 1990. Joshua Heilman died in October 2005.
In 1991,after a ceremony at Yad Vashem to dedicate a memorial to Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza, she mentioned to her son-in-law Sheldon Schwartz that she had kept a Polish diary in Auschwitz that had been confiscated and destroyed during a search, and which she had recreated from memory in a displaced persons camp in 1945. Because none of her children or grandchildren spoke Polish, he persuaded her to translate it into English. They then worked together for 10 years, she as writer, he as editor. Her memoir, Never Far Away: The Auschwitz Chronicles of Anna Heilman, was published in 2001. The book won the 2002 City of Ottawa Book Award.
Anna Heilman is one of those featured in Unlikely Heroes, a 2003 film about Jewish resistance during World War II.
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
. The women involved in the gunpowder smuggling chain include Roza Robota
Roza Robota
Roza Robota , referred to in other sources as Rojza, Rozia, or Rosa, was the leader and one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944.-Biography:Born in Ciechanów, Poland, to a middle class family, Rosa had one brother...
(who had direct contact with the men of the Sonderkommando), Ala Gertner
Ala Gertner
Ala Gertner , referred to in other sources as Alla, Alina, Ella, and Ela, was one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for her role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944.-Early life:Gertner was born in Będzin, Poland, one of three children in a prosperous Jewish family...
, Regina Szafirztajn, Rose Grunapfel Meth
Rose Meth
Rose Grunapfel Meth , born as Ruzia Grunapfel, also known as Reisel Grunapfel Meth, is a surviving participant in the October 7, 1944 "Sonderkommando uprising" of inmates in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp....
, Hadassa Zlotnicka, Marta Bindiger, Genia Fischer, Inge Frank, Ilse, and Antichka.
Anna was born on December 1, 1928 into a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
assimilated Jewish family in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Poland, to Jakub and Rebeka Wajcblum, who were both deaf. They had 2 children before Anna: first Sabina, then Estusia (all 3 of their children had normal hearing). Jakub was born in Warsaw in 1887. He owned a factory (Snycerpol) in Warsaw that employed deaf workers to make wooden handicrafts. He went to the Paris World Exposition to exhibit the factory's products in 1936. His products were also shown at the New York World's Fair
New York World's Fair
New York World's Fair may refer to:* 1939 New York World's Fair* 1964 New York World's Fair...
in 1939. Rebeka was born in 1898 in Pruzany, Poland. She was from a wealthy family. When the children were younger, they had a nanny who was also deaf.
Sabina escaped the Holocaust with her former tutor and future husband, Mietek. They survived by fleeing to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and subsequently settled in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
.
Anna, Estusia and their parents lived in an area that became part of the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
, in an apartment building on 38 Mila Street, just down the street from 18 Mila Street, headquarters of the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa
Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa
The Jewish Combat Organization was a World War II resistance movement, which was instrumental in engineering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. ŻOB took part in a number of other resistance activities as well...
- Jewish Fighting Organization), led by Mordecai Anielewicz.
Anna was part of Hashomer Hatzair, a youth movement. She had a dilemma. She wanted to stay with them and fight in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but she also wanted to stay with her parents. She finally chose to stay with her parents.
Anna, Estusia and their parents were among the last deportees from the Warsaw Ghetto when they were taken to Maidanek in May 1943. Anna's parents were murdered upon arrival at Maidanek. Estusia and Anna were sent to Auschwitz in September 1943.
In her online memoir, Heilman claims it was her own idea to smuggle the powder to the Sonderkommando. A quote from her online memoir: Out of this friendship evolved the ideas of resistance. I can't tell you who initiated it ... The idea was what could we do, each one of us, to resist? I thought, "You are working in the Pulverraum. How about taking gunpowder?" We started to talk about the idea. The gunpowder was within our reach. We thought, "We can use it!" Somebody in the group knew that the Sondrkommando was preparing resistance. We said, "Let us give the gunpowder to them!"
They found many ways to smuggle powder out. Some ways that Anna and others used was pouches on the inside of their dresses, knots of their headscarves, and under their fingernails. They were regularly searched. When they saw from a distance that they would be searched, they would let the powder out onto the ground, and mingled it into the soil so that it could not be seen.
Estusia was betrayed when Ala Gertner told an SS officer she had befriended and trusted about the plot. She, Roza Robota, Regina Stafirstajn, and Ala Gertner were taken to the "Bunker" inside the main camp and tortured for months. They never gave up Anna's name. They only gave names of Sonderkommando members who were already dead.
Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza were hanged on January 5, 1945, just under two weeks before the advancing Soviet Red Army reached Auschwitz. The entire women's camp was forced to watch the executions. The women were executed as Jewish resistance fighters, under direct orders from Berlin. The four were murdered as were millions of others, but their act of defiance and courage forced the Nazis to recognize them as individuals, as they wanted to make an example out of these four to make sure no one else would do what they did.
Auschwitz was brutally evacuated on January 18, 1945 as the Soviet Army continued its advance towards Germany.
Hana and Estusia had a special friendship with Marta Bindiger, a Slovakian Jew who worked in "Kanada" an area in Auschwitz where the possessions stolen from the prisoners were stored in vast warehouses. While Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza were awaiting execution, Estusia sneaked a note to Marta asking her to look after her sister Hana so that she could die easier. Marta wrote back promising never to abandon Hana, and kept her promise. They stayed together, even on the death march to Ravensbrück where they stayed until February, 1945, and then at Neustadt-Glewe
Neustadt-Glewe
Neustadt-Glewe is a German town, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the district of Ludwigslust-Parchim.-Sights and monuments:* The Alte Burg, a 13th-century castle, considered to be the oldest military castle in Mecklenburg....
until the Soviets liberated them on May 2, 1945.. They became lifelong friends.
After a brief stay in Belgium, Anna emigrated in May 1946 to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
under the British Mandate. Anna was reunited with Sabina, met her extended family, and finished high school. On March 7, 1947, Anna married Joshua Heilman. Joshua had left Poland for British Mandate Palestine to pursue his university studies one week before the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. His younger sister Rose was also interned at Auschwitz and survived the war. The rest of his family was murdered.
Anna obtained a degree in social work in Israel. Anna and Joshua had two daughters. Joshua went to the United States as a Hebrew teacher and brought the rest of the family to Boston in 1958. The family emigrated to Ottawa, Canada in 1960 where Joshua found work as a Hebrew school principal. Anna worked with The Children's Aid Society in Ottawa as a bilingual (English-French) social worker until she retired as supervisor of the English-French unit in 1990. Joshua Heilman died in October 2005.
In 1991,after a ceremony at Yad Vashem to dedicate a memorial to Estusia, Regina, Ala and Roza, she mentioned to her son-in-law Sheldon Schwartz that she had kept a Polish diary in Auschwitz that had been confiscated and destroyed during a search, and which she had recreated from memory in a displaced persons camp in 1945. Because none of her children or grandchildren spoke Polish, he persuaded her to translate it into English. They then worked together for 10 years, she as writer, he as editor. Her memoir, Never Far Away: The Auschwitz Chronicles of Anna Heilman, was published in 2001. The book won the 2002 City of Ottawa Book Award.
Anna Heilman is one of those featured in Unlikely Heroes, a 2003 film about Jewish resistance during World War II.