Ep 228: Legacy Chronicles with Donna Rosenblum and guests Susan Katz & Allan Mandelbaum on hmTv

Ep 228: Legacy Chronicles – Courage Untold: Jewish Resistance at Auschwitz

In this powerful episode of Legacy Chronicles on hmTv, host Donna Rosenblum sits down with Susan Katz, author of the play Courage Untold, and Allan E. Mallenbaum, founder of the Rosa Robota Foundation, to uncover a little-known story of Jewish resistance at Auschwitz.

Together, they explore the bravery of Rosa Robota and three other young women who risked everything to smuggle gunpowder for the October 7, 1944 uprising—the only successful revolt inside Auschwitz. Allan shares his personal connection as Rosa’s cousin, while Susan reflects on her journey to bring the story to life on stage through interviews with survivors and witnesses.

The conversation also highlights a new educational initiative developed by HMTC, Susan, and Allan: a curriculum package built around Courage Untold that brings Rosa’s story to AP Global classrooms across New York and beyond.

This episode is a moving reminder that resistance during the Holocaust took many forms—armed, spiritual, and cultural—and that even in the darkest times, courage refused to be silenced.

Transcript

Legacy Chronicles – Ep 228

Host: Donna Rosenblum
Guests: Susan Katz & Allan Mandelbaum
Podcast: hmTv

Donna Rosenblum:
Welcome everyone to our next episode of Legacy Chronicles, honoring the past and shaping the future. I'm Donna Rosenblum, your host and Director of Education here at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center.

Today’s session is unique. Instead of focusing on second-generation testimony, we’re diving into the subject of Jewish resistance—specifically, the remarkable story of Jewish resistance at Auschwitz. I’m honored to welcome two special guests who have been working tirelessly to bring this story to light: Susan Katz and Allan Mandelbaum. Thank you both for being here.

Susan Katz:
I’m delighted you invited me. My name is Susan Katz, and I am the author of the play Courage Untold, which was published in 2021 by Big Dog Publishing.

Allan Mandelbaum:
Hello, my name is Allan, or Elahu Mandelbaum. I’m the founder and president of the Rosa Robota Foundation, named after my second cousin Rosa. I’m honored to share her story.

Rosa Robota’s Story

Donna:
Allan, let’s start with you. Tell us about the Rosa Robota Foundation—how it came to be, and who Rosa was.

Allan:
It began in 1994 when I decided to research my family’s history. That’s when I discovered Rosa Robota, my second cousin—someone no one in my family had even heard of.

Rosa grew up in Poland. When the Nazis invaded in 1939, her community was deported to Auschwitz. Unlike most, she wasn’t killed immediately. She was forced into slave labor. At Auschwitz, the Germans relied on a “special unit” of Jewish prisoners to do the horrific work of moving bodies from gas chambers and feeding them into crematoria.

By October 1944, these prisoners learned they were about to be killed themselves. They launched a revolt—but to succeed, they needed explosives. Rosa and a small group of young women smuggled black powder out of the munitions plant, tiny amounts hidden in their clothing. They passed it to the underground, who used it to make crude grenades.

On October 7, 1944, the revolt began. They succeeded in blowing up one of the crematoria. Though most participants were later captured and killed, it was the only successful uprising inside Auschwitz. Rosa and three other women were tortured brutally and hanged, just ten days before the Nazis abandoned the camp.

I founded the Rosa Robota Foundation to preserve their memory and honor these heroines of Auschwitz.

Acts of Resistance

Donna:
That was powerfully told, Allan. Too few people know about Rosa and the women of Auschwitz. When we speak of resistance, people often imagine armed uprisings, but resistance took many forms—spiritual, cultural, even in small acts of defiance like forging documents or saying a prayer.

One of the most powerful things about Rosa’s story is that it reminds us resistance did exist, even in the darkest places. And October 7th—ironically the same date as the 2023 Hamas attack—remains a marker of Jewish resistance in history.

Susan, can you tell us how you became connected to this story and how your play Courage Untold came to life?

Writing Courage Untold

Susan:
After my play was published, my publisher sent me 40 copies. I reached out online to see where I might send them. That’s when I discovered the Rosa Robota Foundation and contacted Allan.

But my journey started much earlier. As a child in Oak Park, a Jewish neighborhood in Detroit, many of my friends’ parents were Holocaust survivors. One day, at age 10, I asked a friend why her parents had numbers tattooed on their arms. That night, I heard her mother screaming from nightmares about Auschwitz. It left a permanent mark on me.

I grew up wondering, “Why didn’t my people fight back?” Researching Rosa’s story showed me they did. Resistance existed—in armed actions, and in spiritual acts, like women risking death to light Shabbat candles.

With my theater background, I felt compelled to dramatize this. In the 1980s, I began searching archives, survivors, and witnesses. Eventually, through connections, I traveled to Israel and interviewed Noah Zabludowicz, a leader in the Auschwitz underground. He told me Rosa, even under torture, never betrayed her comrades. She was the last person he saw before her execution.

I also interviewed Hanka, the sister of another woman executed with Rosa. Her testimony gave me invaluable detail. All of this became the foundation for Courage Untold.

When the play premiered in Chicago in 1990, audiences were so moved they sat in silence afterward—unable even to clap. It showed me how deeply this story resonates.

Educational Partnership

Donna:
That’s extraordinary, Susan. And it’s exactly why we’ve partnered here at HMTC. When Allan reached out to me, I immediately saw the importance of turning this story into a resource for educators. Together, we’ve developed an educational packet for high school students—particularly AP Global History classes.

It includes Courage Untold, a teacher’s guide, lesson plans, biographies of the women, bibliographies, and activities. The idea is to give students meaningful work after their AP exams in May, when they have time to dive into Holocaust resistance studies.

We’ll be launching this program soon, reaching out to teachers across New York—and hopefully, across the country. Our goal is to make Rosa’s story accessible to students everywhere.

Susan:
That’s our dream—that Courage Untold reaches every state, maybe even internationally. Rosa’s courage shouldn’t remain untold.

Closing

Donna:
Susan, Allan—thank you for your passion, your dedication, and for joining us today on Legacy Chronicles.

To our listeners: please like, share, and subscribe to hmTv. If you’re an educator and want more information about the Courage Untold curriculum, contact me, Donna Rosenblum, at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center. Together, we can ensure these stories live on.

Thank you for joining us.

[Music outro]