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Heroes of Israel

Mala Zimetbaum

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Who

Mala Zimetbaum · Heroes of Israel

What

Escaped Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 to carry word of the killings, and defied the SS to the last at her execution.

When

26 January 1918, Brzesko, Poland — 15 September 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau

Where

Antwerp, Belgium & Auschwitz

Biography

Mala Zimetbaum is recognized among Israeli contributors to Heroes of Israel — Escaped Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 to carry word of the killings, and defied the SS to the last at her execution.

How & why

Raised in Antwerp and known in the camp as 'Mala the Belgian', Mala Zimetbaum worked as an interpreter and runner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a position she used constantly to warn, shield and reassign prisoners away from selections. On 24 June 1944 she escaped with the Polish prisoner Edek Galiński, dressed as an SS man and his prisoner, intending to bring proof of the killings to the world. They were caught near the Slovak border.

At her public execution in September she cut her own wrists and struck the SS officer who seized her; accounts differ on the details of her death, but the story of it travelled through the camp and became one of its enduring acts of defiance.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mala_Zimetbaum

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Contributions & Sources

Escaped Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 to carry word of the killings, and defied the SS to the last at her execution.

1944

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mala_Zimetbaum