Sonderkommandos were work units of
NaziNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
death camp prisoners who aided with the killing process during
The HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
. The death-camp Sonderkommando consisted almost entirely of Jews, and should not be confused with the
SS-Sonderkommandos which were
ad hocAd hoc is a Latin phrase which means "for this [purpose]". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and which cannot be adapted to other purposes....
units formed from various SS offices between 1938 through 1945.
The term itself in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
means "special unit", and was part of the vague and
euphemisticA euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker...
language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the
Final SolutionThe Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the final, most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
(cf.
Sonderkommandos were work units of
NaziNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
death camp prisoners who aided with the killing process during
The HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
. The death-camp Sonderkommando consisted almost entirely of Jews, and should not be confused with the
SS-Sonderkommandos which were
ad hocAd hoc is a Latin phrase which means "for this [purpose]". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and which cannot be adapted to other purposes....
units formed from various SS offices between 1938 through 1945.
The term itself in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
means "special unit", and was part of the vague and
euphemisticA euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker...
language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the
Final SolutionThe Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the final, most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
(cf.
EinsatzgruppenEinsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary groups that took part in the systematic killing of mostly civilians throughout occupied Eastern Europe during World War II.-Background:...
).
Work and death
Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in killing; that responsibility was reserved for the guards, while the Sonderkommandos' primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses. They were forced into the position; in most cases they were inducted immediately upon arrival at the camp, and were not given any advance notice of the tasks they would have to perform. They had no way to refuse or resign other than by committing suicide. Because the Germans needed the Sonderkommandos to remain physically able, they were granted moderately less disastrous living conditions than other inmates: they slept in their own barracks, which more than any other in the camp resembled normal human dwellings; they were allowed to keep and use various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes brought by those who were sent to the gas chambers; and, unlike ordinary inmates, they were not subject to arbitrary, random killing by guards. (Dr.
Miklos NyiszliMiklós Nyiszli was a Jewish prisoner doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, along with his wife and young daughter, was transported to Auschwitz in June 1944...
noted with irony the fact that the medicines arriving were labeled in various languages because Jewish transports were coming from every part of Europe.) As a result, Sonderkommando members tended to survive longer than other inmates of the death camps--but very few survived the war.
Because of their intimate knowledge of the process of Nazi mass murder, the Sonderkommando were considered
Geheimnistrager--bearers of secrets--and as such, they were kept in isolation from other camp inmates, except, of course, for those about to enter the gas chambers. (As a result of this isolation and of the dearth of testimony from surviving Sonderkommando members, much of what is "known" about the Sonderkommando consists of unfounded rumors that circulated among other inmates.) Because the Nazis did not wish the Sonderkommandos' knowledge to reach the outside world, they initially followed a policy of regularly gassing almost all the Sonderkommando and replacing them with new arrivals; the first task of the new Sonderkommandos would be to dispose of their predecessors' corpses. At least at Auschwitz-Birkenau, this system fell into abeyance as the volume of killing increased, and some members of the Sonderkommando there managed to survive several years.
There was a revolt by Sonderkommandos at
AuschwitzAuschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps and extermination camps, operational during World War II.The camp took its German name from the hosting town of Oświęcim. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Oświęcim was annexed by Nazi Germany and...
in which one of the crematoria was partly destroyed with explosives. When the camp resistance warned the Sonderkommando that they were due to be murdered on the morning of 7 October 1944, they attacked the SS and
KaposKapo was a prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camps during World War II in some lower administrative position ....
with axes, knives, and home-made grenades. Three SS men were killed, including one who was pushed alive into a crematorium oven; and some prisoners escaped from the camp for a period. They were recaptured later the same day. Of those who did not die in the uprising itself, 200 were forced to strip, lie face down, and then were shot in the back of the head. A total of 451 Sonderkommandos were killed on this day.
There was also an uprising in
TreblinkaTreblinka II was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Around 850,000 people - more than 99.5 percent of whom were Jews, but also other victims - were killed there between July 1942 and October 1943; the camp was closed after a revolt during which a few Germans...
on 2 August 1943, in which around 100 prisoners succeeded in breaking out of the camp
, and a similar uprising in
SobibórSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
on 14 October 1943. About 50-64 of the prisoners from each camp survived the war. The uprising in Sobibor was made into a factual film,
Escape from SobiborEscape from Sobibor is a 1987 British made-for-TV film which aired on CBS. It deals with the extermination camp at Sobibor, the site of the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps...
, starring
Rutger HauerRutger Oelsen Hauer is a Golden Globe–winning Dutch film actor. He is well known for his roles in Blind Fury, Blade Runner, The Hitcher, Nighthawks, Ladyhawke, The Blood of Heroes and Batman Begins....
, amongst others.
The Sonderkommandos in
SobibórSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp set up in the Lublin region of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor. Jews, including Jewish Soviet prisoners of war , and possibly Gypsies were transported to Sobibor by rail, and...
camp III did not take part in the uprising in camp I, and were murdered the following day. Both Sobibor and Treblinka were closed shortly afterwards.
Fewer than twenty out of several thousand members of the special squads are documented to have survived until liberation and were able to testify to the events (though some sources claim more), among them: Henryk Tauber, Filip Mueller, Daniel Behnnamias, Dario Gabbai, Morris Venezia, Shlomo Venezia, Alter Fajnzylberg, Abram Dragon,
David OlereDavid Olère was a Polish-born French artist best known for his explicit drawings and paintings based on his experiences as a Jewish Sonderkommando inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.-Biography:David Olère studied at Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts in his early youth, and...
,
Henryk MandelbaumHenryk Mandelbaum was a survivor of the Holocaust. He was one of the prisoners in the Sonderkommando KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory...
,
Martin GrayMartin Gray, born as Mieczysław Grajewski is a former captain in the Soviet Red Army and NKVD secret police and a Holocaust survivor....
. There have been at most another six or seven confirmed to have survived, but who have not given witness (or at least, such testimony is not documented). Buried and hidden accounts by members of the Sonderkommando were also later found at some camps.
Testimonies
In the collection at
Yad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and...
, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Israel, there are notes from members of the Sonderkommando. The following note was found buried in the Auschwitz crematoria written by Zalmen Gradowski, a member of the Sonderkommando and killed in the Sonderkommando Revolt in October 1944:
"Dear finder of these notes,
I have one request of you, which is, in fact, the practical objective for my writing... that my days of Hell, that my hopeless tomorrow will find a purpose in the future. I am transmitting only a part of what happened in the Birkenau-Auschwitz Hell. You will realize what reality looked like... From all this you will have a picture of how our people perished."
There are several eyewitness accounts from members of the Sonderkommando. Publications include:
- Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, deposition by Henryk Tauber in the Polish Courts, May 24, 1945, p. 481-502, Jean-Claude Pressac
Jean-Claude Pressac was a French chemist and pharmacist who became a published authority on the Holocaust of World War II....
, Pressac-Klarsfeld, 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York, Library of Congress 89-81305
- Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers by Filip Müller
Filip Müller was one of very few Sonderkommandos to have survived Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German extermination camp. He witnessed the exterminations and gassings of a million Jews and lived to write one of the key documents of the Holocaust...
, Ivan R. Dee, 1979, ISBN 1-56663-271-4
- We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz by Gideon Greif
-Education:From 1965 until 1969 Gideon Greif attended Municipal High School in Tel Aviv. Later, from 1974 to 1976 he attended Tel Aviv University where he got his Bachelor's degree in Jewish History, studying the History of the Land of Israel. Between 1976 and 1982 he did his Masters degree in...
, Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-300-10651-3.
- The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando by Rebecca Fromer, University Alabama Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8173-5041-1.
- Auschwitz : A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli
Miklós Nyiszli was a Jewish prisoner doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, along with his wife and young daughter, was transported to Auschwitz in June 1944...
(translated from the original Hungarian), Arcade Publishing, 1993, ISBN 1-55970-202-8. A play and subsequent film about the Sonderkommandos, The Grey ZoneThe Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli....
(2001) directed by Tim Blake NelsonTim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer and actor.-Personal life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa...
, was based on this book.
- Dario Gabbai (Interview Code 142, conducted in English) video testimony, interview conducted in November 1996, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, one year after completing the Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List...
, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, University of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, USA...
.
- Sonderkommando Auschwitz. La verità sulle camere a gas. Una testimonianza unica, Shlomo Venezia, Rizzoli, 2007, ISBN 8817017787
See also
- Auschwitz: The Final Witness - Sky TV 60 min documentary 2000 - http://www.andrewbarron.com/id60.htm
- Kommando
Kommando is a generic German word meaning unit or command. During World War II it was also the basic unit of organisation of slave labourers in German concentration camps....
- Ala Gertner
Ala Gertner , referred to in other sources as Alla, Alina, Ella, and Ela, was one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for her role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944.-Early life:Gertner was born in Będzin, Poland, one of three children in a prosperous Jewish family...
- David Olère
David Olère was a Polish-born French artist best known for his explicit drawings and paintings based on his experiences as a Jewish Sonderkommando inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.-Biography:David Olère studied at Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts in his early youth, and...
- Filip Mueller
- Roza Robota
Roza Robota , referred to in other sources as Rojza, Rozia, or Rosa, was one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944...
- Rose Meth
Rose Grunapfel Meth , born as Ruzia Grunapfel, also known as Reisel Grunapfel Meth, is a surviving participant in the October 7, 1944 "Sonderkommando uprising" of inmates in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp....
- The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli....
- Ypatingasis būrys
Ypatingasis Būrys or Special SD and German Security Police Squad was a Nazi-sponsored killing squad of approximately 50 men, also called the Lithuanian equivalent of Sonderkommando, operating in the Vilnius Region...
External links
short history of the
jüdische Sonderkommando - www.sonderkommando-studien.de/ (further content: Zum Begriff Sonderkommando und verwandten Bezeichnungen • „Handlungsräume“ im Sonderkommando Auschwitz. • Der „Sonderkommando-Aufstand“ in Auschwitz-Birkenau - Photos )