Sonderkommando
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners forced to aid the killing process. The term itself in German means "special unit" and was part of the vague and euphemistic language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the Final Solution (cf. Einsatzgruppen). 'Sonderkommando' has become known in other languages primarily in the context of concentration camps.
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[edit] Work and death
Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in the killing (though they did accompany the victims to the gas chambers) — killing was reserved for the guards. Their primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses. They were forced into the position, and accepted it because it meant a few more days or weeks of life, as well as infinitely better living conditions. They would sleep in their own barracks, which more than any other in the camp resembled normal human dwellings; various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes, plundered from those who were already sent to the gas chambers, were at their disposal. Dr. Miklos Nyiszli notes with irony the fact that the medicines arriving were all in different languages, because the Jewish transports to Auschwitz were coming from every part of Europe.
Because the Sonderkommandos were privy to information about Nazi methods that the Nazis did not wish to reach the outside world, the groups were murdered at regular intervals; new Sonderkommandos were selected from the subsequent transports. The first task of the new Sonderkommandos would be to dispose of their predecessors' corpses.
There was a revolt by Sonderkommandos in Treblinka, in which between 150 and 500 prisoners escaped, and a less successful one at Auschwitz in which one of the crematoria was partly destroyed with explosives. The Sonderkommando in Sobibór camp III did not take part in the uprising in camp I, and were murdered the following day.
Very few survived until liberation and were able to testify to the events, and buried or hidden accounts by members of the Sonderkommando were later found at some camps.
[edit] Testimonies
There are several eyewitness accounts from members of the Sonderkommando. Publications include:
- Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers by Filip Müller, Ivan R. Dee, 1979, ISBN 1-56663-271-4
- We Wept Without Tears: Testimonies of the Jewish Sonderkommando from Auschwitz by Gideon Greif, 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 (translated from the original Hungarian), Arcade Publishing, 1993, ISBN 1-55970-202-8. A play and subsequent film about the Sonderkommandos, The Grey Zone (2001) directed by Tim Blake Nelson, 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, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, University of Southern California.
[edit] See also
- German concentration camps
- The Holocaust
- Kommando
- Ala Gertner
- David Olère
- Roza Robota
- Ypatingasis būrys
- Rose Meth
[edit] Unrelated usages
- A song in this name by the heavy-metal band GWAR
[edit] External links
- (German) 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 )
- Informations about Auschwitz Sonderkommandos members on the French site Sonderkommando.info
