Rose Grunapfel Meth (October 11, 1919 – October 11, 2013) born as Ruzia Grunapfel, also known as Reisel Grunapfel Meth, was one of several Jewish participants in the October 7, 1944 " Sonderkommando uprising" of inmates in the

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

Life

Auschwitz Uprising

Ruzia Grunapfel was born in Zator, Poland. She was sent to Auschwitz in the 1940s where she was forced to work in the Weichsel-Union-Metalwerke or Union Munitions Plant. Ruzia, along with a number of prisoners including Estusia (Ester) Wajcblum, Hanka (Anna) Wajcblum, Regina Safirsztajn, Ala Gertner, Hadassa Zlotnicka, Marta Bindiger, Genia Fischer, and Inge Frank, worked together to sneak the powder out in kerchiefs stuffed into a pocket or their bosom. If searched, they would dump the powder onto the ground and rub it into the earth with their feet. The woman gave the gunpowder to Roza Robota, a prisoner who worked clothing-detail in Birkenau. Robota then gave the gunpowder to the

Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ) were Extermination through labor, work units made up of Nazi Germany, German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the di ...

, a group of death camp prisoners who were forced to dispose of gas chamber victims in the crematoriums. On October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommandos used the gunpowder to blow up crematorium IV in

Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. Ala, Roza, Ester, and Regina were detained and tortured for their role in the plot. The women were publicly hanged in Birkenau on January 5, 1945. Ruzia survived and was forced to watch the executions. Hanka (Anna) Wajcblum also survived. The fate of the other female prisoners mentioned is unknown. Thirteen days after they died, Auschwitz was closed down by the SS, as they fled from the advance of Russian liberators. Ruzia was on the Death March from Auschwitz to Ravensbruk and was ultimately liberated in Neustadt-Gleve sub-camp of Ravensbruk. While in the camp, she traded bread for paper so that she could write notes while in Auschwitz, in order to bear witness later, heeding her father's admonition to remember what happened. Some of the surviving notes are in the archives at Yad Vashem.

Post World War II

Grunapfel emigrated to the US in 1946 aboard the first civilian ship from Europe since the end of World War II. Subsequently, she settled in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York, married Irving Meth, and raised three sons. She spent the last ten years of her life in Kew Gardens Hills, New York. She died in October 2013. In 2016 her children and grandchildren dedicated a song in her memory, "Rose Meth, The Unsung Heroine".

References

External links

Bio and testimony of Rose MethRose G. Meth cited in testimony of Anna HeilmanOral history interview with Rose Meth, United States Holocaust Museum
1925 births 2013 deaths People from Oświęcim County 20th-century Polish Jews Polish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Polish emigrants to the United States {{Poland-bio-stub