Mala Zimetbaum (1918 – 1944) was a Polish Jewish resistance fighter , who distinguished herself by her extraordinary courage. Deported to Auschwitz, she manages to escape before being recaptured. Until the last moment, she urges her fellow prisoners to revolt.
The White Brigade
The youngest of five siblings, Mala Zimetbaum was born on January 26, 1918 in a small town in southern Poland, in a Jewish family. His mother, Chaïa Schmelzer, is a laborer and his father, Pinkhas Zimetbaum-Hartman, is a peddler. In 1928, the family moved to Belgium, to Antwerp. At school, Mala proves to be a brilliant student, particularly gifted in languages. She speaks, among others, Polish, Flemish, Yiddish, French, English.
In the early 1930s, Mala decided to stop studying to support her family and in particular her father who had become blind. In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, she worked as a seamstress in a fashion boutique in Antwerp. Aware that the situation of the Jews was in danger of becoming dangerous, Mala approached the resistance through the White Brigade, which carried out mainly anti-German intelligence and propaganda actions.
Deportation to Auschwitz
In early 1942, Mala Zimetbaum took a job as a diamond cutter and then worked as a secretary at the American Diamond Company . When Jewish diamond companies are closed to the authorities, Mala does not follow the company to the United States. She goes to Brussels to look for a hiding place for her family; on her return to Antwerp, in July 1942, she was arrested as she got off the train. After weeks of detention, she was deported to Auschwitz in September.
At Auschwitz, Mala was declared fit for work, tattooed with the number 19880 and transferred to the Birkenau women's camp. Noted for her excellent command of languages, she was chosen to serve as an interpreter and courier. Its special status gives it some advantages, including proper nutrition and hygiene. Whenever possible, Mala uses her position to help her fellow prisoners by providing them with rations, medicine, or passing on messages. Survivors testify to her efforts to help sick, weakened and struggling women.
Escape with Edek
At the end of 1943, Mala Zimetbaum met Edward Galinsk (nicknamed Edek), mechanic and inmate at Auschwitz for more than three years as a political prisoner. The two fall in love; the special status conferred by the tasks entrusted to them allows them to see each other occasionally. And when Edek plans an escape, in June 1944, he offers Mala to join him. Disguised as an SS man and a male prisoner, the two manage to escape from the camp.
At the evening roll call, their escape is spotted and the alert is given at the checkpoints. Mala and Edek escaped their pursuers for twelve days but were taken back towards the Slovakian border in early July 1944. The fugitives were taken back to the camp where they were interrogated and tortured. Both say they acted alone so as not to charge the other. Mala manages to get a message across to one of her fellow prisoners, telling her, "I know what awaits me. I am prepared for the worst. Be brave and remember everything” .
The last moments
Sentenced to death by hanging, Mala Zimetbaum and Edek were to be executed simultaneously and publicly, Mala in the B-Ia women's camp and Edek in the B-Id men's camp, in September 1944. Edek attempted to hang him by rushing forward, but he is pushed back and hanged after the verdict is read.
While her sentence is being pronounced in front of the assembled inmates, Mala, who had concealed a blade on her, manages to cut a vein. An SS man tries to stop him; she punches him in the face. Driven to the infirmary to stop the bleeding, Mala dies on the way to the crematorium or is shot on arrival. Her last words, of which different versions have been reported, would have been to urge her fellow prisoners to revolt.
Different versions of his last words
"I know I'm going to die, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that you will also die, you and your Criminal Reich. Your hours are numbered and soon you will pay for your crimes"
“I will die a heroine, you will die like a dog”
“Murderers, you will have to pay soon, do not be afraid, the end is near; I know I was free, don't give up, never forget"
"Get up! Upright! You are hundreds, attack them! »