Rosa (Polish name "Rojza") Robota has gone down in Jewish Holocaust history as a heroine for her actions of smuggling black powder (schwartzpulver) which was made into explosives. These explosives were used during the famous Sonderkommando Revolt and culminated in the demolition of Crematorium IV at the Auschwitz-Birkeneau concentration camp. This was an action for which she gave up her life - because she was apprehended, interrogated, tortured and then executed.
In November 1942 at age 21, Rosa was "deported" from Ciechanow, Poland by rail and arrived at "Anus Mundi": Auschwitz.. Her entire immediate family was deported to a concentration camp and died in the gas chambers. After two years of survival, while working in a clothing-supply section of the camp complex, Rosa was approached by Noah Zabladowicz, a member of the Jewish underground in the camp who had known Rosa in her hometown. With Himmler's order to step up the pace of the gassing in the summer of 1944, the rate that people were being murdered each day was astronomical: 46,000 in a 24 hour period on July 24! (the record for Auschwitz). The burning pits were ablaze day and night because the crematoria in operation at the time could not keep up.

Noah explained to Rosa that an uprising was to be staged and there were plans to blow up the crematoria and gas chambers in collaboration with outside partisans. Since Rosa had friends working in the Union Munitions Plant (Weichsel-Union-Metalwerke) located within the Auschwitz complex, she was asked to help obtain the schwartzpulver.

Rosa established about 20 contacts in the plant who were willing to cooperate. These were women and they smuggled the schwartzpulver into the camp week after week. The powder was hidden inside a trap-door in their dresses which could be "tripped" and "dumped" if it appeared that the secret would be discovered during the routine searches of prisoners returning into the camps from the factories. The explosives were made into bombs using sardine tins and were assembled by a Russian POW munitions expert named Timofei Borodin. The completed devices were then hidden about the camp. At one point, tragedy occurred - a few of the girls were caught and these heroines were hanged. Somehow, the authorities did not extract adequate information from these women and the operation continued. One of the hiding places was with the Sonderkommando, the special detail which handled and processed the corpses from the gas chambers day and night. The explosives were hidden in the carts & lorries used to haul the corpses. Unfortunately, before the revolt could occur as a concerted effort, the Sonderkommando staged their own uprising with the explosives they had - for they were afraid that they were about to be gassed (members of the this work group were normally selected out and gassed about every 3 months). Subsequently, on October 7, 1944, Crematorium IV was blown up. Four SS men were killed and several wounded. In the panic and pandemonium, around 600 of the Sonderkommando were able to break through the fences and escape. It is unfortunate that all who escaped were caught and shot - with the usual German efficiency and the ever-present cooperation of the Polish people in the surrounding area. A special team was called in to investigate and the explosives were traced back to the Union plant. Using all manners of torture and "persuasion" under the auspices of the "Political Dept" (operated by the Gestapo), the names of Rosa and 3 others were obtained : Regina Safirsztain (Sapirstein), Ella Gartner (Gertner) and Estucia Wajcblum (Esther Weisblum).
 

Noah, using connections, was able to visit Rosa in her cell in the prison called "The Bunker" to say farewell to his fallen comrade - for he knew her fate was sealed, as did Rosa, herself. Additionally, he feared that since she knew too much and would possibly "crack" under the torture, he had to know if she had or was going to confess what she knew.

His worries were unfounded, Rosa had withstood the most horrible tortures to her body. As she lay on the dark floor, half-dead already, she could not even speak at first. When she finally gathered the strength to speak, she told Noah what the torturers had done to her. Noah could not comprehend how Rosa had endured the horrendous torture. But she had not betrayed the underground. She asked that the underground continue its work even in the face of such terrible consequences such as she ws being made to endure - including the realization that she had been sentenced to death by hanging.

At 23 years old, Rosa and her 3 comrades were hanged before the camp population. Her last message was a note scratched on a piece of paper she managed to smuggle from her cell: "Hazak V' Amatz" : Be Strong & Brave.