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Some escape attempts ended in failure. One of them was the effort by the Brzeszcze PPS group to free several prisoners who were active in the resistance movement inside the camp, including Ernst Burger, an Austrian, and Bernard Świerczyny, a Pole, on October 27, 1944. They bribed an SS man to carry them out of Auschwitz in a truck, but things went wrong when the SS man betrayed them. The SS murdered the unfortunate escapers and other prisoners who were in on the plot. 

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Some escape attempts ended in failure. One of them was the effort by the Brzeszcze PPS group to free several prisoners who were active in the resistance movement inside the camp, including Ernst Burger, an Austrian, and Bernard Świerczyny, a Pole, on October 27, 1944. They bribed an SS man to carry them out of Auschwitz in a truck, but things went wrong when the SS man betrayed them. The SS murdered the unfortunate escapers and other prisoners who were in on the plot. 

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The first escape came on July 6, 1940, at the very beginning of the existence of Auschwitz. A Pole, Tadeusz Wiejowski, made his way out of the camp with the help of Polish civilian workers employed in the camp. He escaped in the disguise of such a worker. Five Polish workers were incarcerated in the camp for aiding him. Only one survived, but he died shortly after the war.

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On the night of September 11/12, 1944, Jawischowitz sub-camp prisoner Kazimierz Szwemberg, a Pole, escaped while working at the coalmine with the help of Brzeszcze PPS couriers. He went into hiding with the Nikiel family in Skidziń, before being smuggled to Cracow. From there, he joined the PPS Teodor partisan unit and fought until liberation. He tried to escape after Mala because he thought she made it.

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“In my opinion, resistance in Birkenau was to help each other survive and Mala was eager to help, that was deeply rooted in her ethics. Mala fed starving prisoners. Now and then Mala brought me some bread, a little honey, a carrot. Without that I would have died. She used to encourage desperate persons. Having recovered from typhoid fever, I had no shoes, I was really skinny. It was Mala who scolded me, “Take care of yourself! Get decent clothing. You’ve got to wash somehow.”  Yes they wanted freedom but most important they wanted to stand up to the Nazis.  

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“In my opinion, resistance in Birkenau was to help each other survive and Mala was eager to help, that was deeply rooted in her ethics. Mala fed starving prisoners. Now and then Mala brought me some bread, a little honey, a carrot. Without that I would have died. She used to encourage desperate persons. Having recovered from typhoid fever, I had no shoes, I was really skinny. It was Mala who scolded me, “Take care of yourself! Get decent clothing. You’ve got to wash somehow.”  Yes they wanted freedom but most important they wanted to stand up to the Nazis.  

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Most prisoner escapes took place from worksites outside the camp. The attitude of local civilians was of immense importance in the success of these efforts. The Auschwitz commandant wrote in July 1940 to the commander of SS and police in Wrocław that “the local population is fanatically Polish and . . . ready to do anything against the hated camp SS garrison. Every prisoner who manages to escape can count on all possible help as soon as he reaches the first Polish homestead.”

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Most prisoner escapes took place from worksites outside the camp. The attitude of local civilians was of immense importance in the success of these efforts. The Auschwitz commandant wrote in July 1940 to the commander of SS and police in Wrocław that “the local population is fanatically Polish and . . . ready to do anything against the hated camp SS garrison. Every prisoner who manages to escape can count on all possible help as soon as he reaches the first Polish homestead.”

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Malka Zimetbaum was the youngest of five children born to Pinkas Zimetbaum and his wife Chaya, in Brzesko, Poland on the 26 January 1918.

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As Soviet troops approach, SS units begin the final evacuation of prisoners from the Auschwitz camp complex, marching them on foot toward the interior of the German Reich. These forced evacuations come to be called " death marches."

In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its subcamps. SS units forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march either northwest for 55 kilometers (approximately 30 miles) to Gliwice (Gleiwitz), joined by prisoners from subcamps in East Upper Silesia, such as Bismarckhuette, Althammer, and Hindenburg, or due west for 63 kilometers (approximately 35 miles) to Wodzislaw (Loslau) in the western part of Upper Silesia, joined by inmates from the subcamps to the south of Auschwitz, such as Jawischowitz, Tschechowitz, and Golleschau. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. At least 3,000 prisoners died on route to Gliwice alone; possibly as many as 15,000 prisoners died during the evacuation marches from Auschwitz and the subcamps.

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January 17, 1945. On this date, SS units evacuated prisoners from the Auschwitz camp complex as Soviet forces approached.

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Two years after the German occupation of Belgium Mala was arrested on the 22 July 1942, at Antwerp Central Station, on her way back from Brussels, where she had been looking for a hiding place for her family and herself.

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Mala is still remembered even to this day, and many Auschwitz survivors regularly gather to pay their respect to this brave woman, and a plaque has been placed on the house where her family lived in in Antwerp, scholarships and even a  B'nai B'rith lodge have been named in her honor.

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NEVER AGAIN - A song to remember the Holocaust