Deadly striptease in Auschwitz

The legend of this Jewish ballerina was made not by dancing, but by murder. When she, a former star, was ordered to undress in Auschwitz, she suddenly gave the Nazis a striptease. Mesmerized, she snatched a pistol from one guard and shot another at point-blank range. With the firing of Franziska Mann, she raised all the women of that death locker room to fight: someone from the Germans had their nose bitten off, someone had their skin torn off.

The ballerina Francisca Rosenberg showed great hopes. The talent of the glorious Jewish girl was honed by the teachers of the Irena Prusika school — one of the three largest private dance institutions in Warsaw. They were betting on it — that's it, the future of Polish dance. Francisca was able to do everything-both modern and classical. In 1939, the light and plastic ballerina took fourth place in the international dance competition in Brussels, beating more than a hundred participants. Big and small stages, ovations, contracts, influential fans and even your own school — all this was at arm's length. But the arrival of the Nazis crossed everything out.

When Hitler's Germany attacked Poland, for Jews, thoughts of survival abruptly replaced everything else. Like hundreds of thousands of other representatives of her people, the 23-year-old ballerina Franziska, who has already married and took the surname Mann, ended up in the Warsaw ghetto. She had no choice but to perform at the local theater-the Melody Palace cabaret on the territory of the ghetto — this somehow connected her with a bright past. But she was not used to being content with little, and the prospect of remaining in the status of a prisoner did not inspire her.

In 1942, the Nazis gave the Jews of Warsaw a chance to escape. Those who show the passport of a neutral country were promised free departure from Germany for exchange for German prisoners of war. Of course, neither the residents of the ghetto had such documents, nor those who still managed to hide from the Germans on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. However, the news quickly spread — primarily thanks to the Jewish collaborators from the organization "Zhagev"who collaborated with the Nazis. They "secretly" spread "life-saving" information about the Warsaw ghetto. Unaware of the trick, the residents of the ghetto passed the information to the participants of the Jewish underground. They used all their contacts, and soon Jewish foundations from Switzerland began to send passports to Warsaw-mostly with citizenship of South American countries.

In May 1943, these passports began to be issued — that's just not for nothing, but for fabulous money. The passport cost about 20 thousand dollars in modern terms, and this again cut off the path to" salvation " for almost all residents of the ghetto. The opportunity to pay such a sum was mainly only for those who were still at large. In general, the seemingly reliable scheme turned out to be a cynical deception. The Germans did not agree on any exchange at that time. In the future, according to these documents, only a few hundred Jews will be saved, who will be exchanged for German prisoners in Palestine. The remaining three thousand who bought passports will meet death in prisons and concentration camps of the Nazis. The Gestapo simply lured out those who managed to hide outside the ghetto. In the hope of salvation, the Jews voluntarily and with all their jewelry went straight into the hands of the Nazis. And there is no trouble, and money to the Fuhrer.

Those who bought a " pass to life "were settled in the hotel" Poland "in the" Aryan " part of Warsaw, where the headquarters of a fictional organization was located, which allegedly had to arrange the relocation of Jews to South Africa. Soon, Franziska Mann also moved into one of the hotel rooms from the ghetto. There were rumors that the ballerina was actively cooperating with the Germans, as was her old friend, an actress, also a ghetto prisoner Vera Gran. Franziska told her friends in the ghetto in a loud whisper about a great opportunity to escape, and those, not suspecting a trick, passed the news on to the "Aryan" side — there were those who wanted to. However, there is no evidence that the ballerina helped the Nazis, realizing the real purpose and scale of the operation. Perhaps she herself was under the illusion that the rich victims would be saved — most likely, the passport given to her served as a" thank you " to the Germans for their cooperation. Or maybe Mann became an accidental victim of the operation at all, having bought a document with the last hidden valuables or received it from some influential admirer.

In July 1943, the police arrived at the hotel. A total of 300 "guests" were deported to an internment camp in the French Wittel — indeed, for a possible exchange. The rest — and according to various estimates, there were from 2.5 to 3 thousand people-were allegedly sent to the German camp of Burgau in the south of Germany, in order to be transported from there to Switzerland. Among this larger group was Francisca Mann. We drove for a long time, and when the cars stopped not in the south of Germany, but in the Auschwitz concentration camp, the enthusiastic passengers did not suspect anything. They were greeted with a warm smile by "an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich" Franz Hessler, who was actually the head of the camp guard in the Auschwitz system. Before crossing the border, the newcomers had to perform a small formality — take a shower for mandatory disinfection.

Francisca, along with other women, was sent to a barrack, which was actually a changing room in front of the gas chambers. There was an incomprehensible smell in the air, and wild, jerky rumors that the Nazis were actually killing and burning Jews were superimposed on reality. Everything became clear to her. The escorts suddenly became not as nice as Hessler, those who refused to take off their clothes with hidden valuable transit documents began to hurry with the butts of machine guns. There are no illusions left. There was nowhere to run, but Mann couldn't afford to die just like that.

While everyone was hurriedly pulling off their dresses, sweatshirts and stockings, the ballerina thoughtfully took off one thing after another. The guards began to openly stare at her. Deciding that she had nothing to lose, Franziska began to dance a slow striptease, sending her clothes to the floor. Her movements literally hypnotized the guards, who could no longer see anything but her bare forms. When Mann was almost completely undressed and the tension reached its limit, she threw a high-heeled shoe at Sergeant Emmerich. The latter, wiping the blood from his face, uncovered his holster, but Franziska snatched the gun from him. Two bullets in a row, which were intended for him, hit the stomach of an SS man standing next to Josef Schillinger, one of the bloodiest sadists of Auschwitz. Then there was another shot-in the leg of Emmerich. This shooting was a signal for the women in the locker room to take action. A desperate fight for life began. Another SS man's nose was bitten off, and another was partially skinned on the head. When the wounded guards were dragged out into the street, the head of the Sonderkommando ordered to urgently lock the locker room and shoot the spontaneous uprising through the walls. And so they did.

The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess, coolly reported on such a solution to the problem. Later, at the trial, Adolf Eichmann confirmed that Schillinger, known for his sadism, was indeed killed by a Jewish woman. Emmerich survived, but that bullet seriously injured his knee, and he could never walk normally again.

There are few post-war witnesses of those bloody events left. The only surviving eyewitness of the sharp, like a powder flash, female riot was a member of the Sonderkommando, a Slovak Jew, Philip Muller. He mentioned those events in his memoirs, which were published in 1979. In 2015, David Vishnau, who was sorting things of new arrivals to Auschwitz, also told how he witnessed the execution-the barracks were shot before his eyes, but he did not see what was inside. There are still a few less realistic versions of what happened next. According to some reports, Francisca Mann was still pushed into a gas chamber, strangled along with dozens of other rioters and sent to crematorium number four. According to others, the women were taken one by one into the courtyard and shot, and only then burned.

These sad details are no longer particularly important. It is important that the aerial ballerina from bohemian Warsaw, without planning it, gave everyone a valuable lesson — to fight for yourself to the last drop of blood and not be afraid to shoot in the stomach of absolute evil. And even if the war for life obviously ends not in your favor, there is always one more fight - for a worthy death. Francisca Mann definitely won this fight.