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Members of a Sonderkommando 1005 unit pose next to a bone crushing machine in the Janowska concentration camp
Members of a Sonderkommando 1005 unit pose next to a bone crushing machine in the Janowska concentration camp

Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners forced to aid the killing process during The Holocaust. Janowska was a Nazi labor transit and Concentration camp established in September 1941 on the outskirts of Lvov, Poland (today Ukraine Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Extermination camps were two types of facilities that Nazi Germany built during World War II for the systematic killing of millions of people in what has become The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as

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. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. A 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 The Final Solution ( Die Endlösung) was Nazi Germany 's plan and execution of its systematic Genocide against European Jewry during World Einsatzgruppen). Einsatzgruppen ( German: "task forces" "intervention groups" were Paramilitary groups formed by Heinrich Himmler and

Contents

Work and death

Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in the killing, which was reserved for the guards. Their primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses. A cadaver or corpse is a dead Body. "Cadaver" is normally used as a more formal term for a body being used in medical training or research They were forced into the position, and accepted it because it meant a few more days or weeks of life, as well as vastly-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 noted with irony the fact that the medicines arriving were all in different languages because of Jewish transports coming from every part of Europe. Miklós Nyiszli ( June 17, 1901 in Nagyvárad, Hungary (now Oradea, Romania) – May 5, 1956)

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[1].

Sonderkommando Henryk Mandelbaum and translator talk on the ruins of crematoria at Auschwitz II. He was a member of the Auschwitz II Sonderkommandos at the time of the revolt by the Sonderkommandos. He told of how his unit, who did not revolt, were punished by having every third member of the group executed as a lesson.
Sonderkommando Henryk Mandelbaum and translator talk on the ruins of crematoria at Auschwitz II. He was a member of the Auschwitz II Sonderkommandos at the time of the revolt by the Sonderkommandos. He told of how his unit, who did not revolt, were punished by having every third member of the group executed as a lesson.

There was a revolt by Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz in which one of the crematoria was partly destroyed with explosives. "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany Cremation is the act of reducing a Corpse by burning, generally in a crematorium furnace or crematory fire 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 Kapos 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 Treblinka, in which between 150 and 500 prisoners escaped, and a similar uprising in Sobibór. Treblinka II was a German Extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. About 30 or so of the prisoners from each camp survived the war. The uprising in Sobibor was made into a factual film, Escape from Sobibor, starring Rutger Hauer, amongst others. Escape from Sobibor is a made-for-TV film which aired in 1987 on CBS. Rutger Oelsen Hauer (rʏtxər ulsən hʌuər born January 23, 1944) is a Golden Globe -winning Dutch Film Actor.

The Sonderkommandos in Sobibór camp III did not take part in the uprising in camp I, and were murdered the following day. Both Sobibor and Treblinka were wound up shortly afterwards.

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.

Testimonies

In the collection at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Israel, there are notes from members of the Sonderkommando. Yad Vashem (יד ושם also spelled Yad VaShem; "Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority" is Israel 's official memorial to the Jewish Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the The following note was found buried in the Auschwitz crematoria written by Zalman Gradowski, a member of the Sonderkommando and killed in the Sonderkommando Revolt in October of 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. "[2]

There are several eyewitness accounts from members of the Sonderkommando. Publications include:

See also

References

  1. ^ Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, Dr. 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 Ala Gertner (March 12 1912 – January 5 1945 referred to in other sources as Alla, Alina, Ella, and Ela, was one of four women hanged in David Olère ( January 19, 1902, Warsaw - August 21, 1985, Paris) was a Polish -born French Artist Roza Robota (1921 Ciechanów &ndash January 5, 1945) referred to in other sources as Rojza, Rozia, or Rosa, was one of Rose Grunapfel Meth (b 1920 Zator Poland) born Ruzia Grunapfel, also known as Reisel Grunapfel Meth, surviving participant in the October 7 The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Ypatingasis Būrys ( Special Squad) or Special SD and German Security Police Squad (Vokiečių Saugumo policijos ir SD ypatingasis būrys szaulisi ( shaulists Miklos Nyiszli, Arcade Publishing, 1993, ISBN 1-55970-202-8
  2. ^ Rutta, Matt Yad Vashem Rabbinic Rambling, March 23, 2006; accessed April 30, 2007.

External links

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