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48-463: Sonderkommandos ( German: [ˈzɔndɐkɔˌmando] , lit.   ' special unit ' ) were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust . The death-camp Sonderkommandos , who were always inmates, were unrelated to

96-475: A daughter, Orit, together. After retiring, Willenberg completed formal studies in the field of fine arts. He graduated in sculpture at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and quickly became known for his work on the Holocaust. He created mainly figurative sculpture in clay and bronze. His series of fifteen bronze casts depicting people and scenes from the Treblinka death camp, as well as several maps and drawings of

144-720: A dead child he takes for his son. Géza Röhrig , who starred in the film, reacted with anger to the suggestion, made by a journalist, that members of the Sonderkommando were "half-victim, half-hangman". "There has to be a clarification," he said. "They are 100% victims. They have not spilled blood or been involved in any sort of killing. They were inducted on arrival under the threat of death. They had no control of their destinies. They were as victimised as any other prisoners in Auschwitz." Kommando A Kommando ( German: [kɔˈmando] , lit. "unit" or "command")

192-583: A duplicate key to open the camp arsenal and steal 20 to 25 rifles, 20 hand grenades, and several pistols. At 3:45 p.m., 700 Jews launched an attack on the camp's SS guards and trawnikis that lasted for 30 minutes. They set buildings and a fuel tanker ablaze. Armed Jews attacked the main gate, while others attempted to climb the fence. About 200 Jews escaped from the camp, but the well-armed guards slaughtered hundreds of others. They phoned for SS reinforcements from four towns, and these set up roadblocks and pursued escapees in cars and on horses. Partisans of

240-418: A former Sonderkommando will go to obtain forgiveness and closure: "The fact that good people can be forced to do wrong doesn't make them less good," the survivor says of himself, "but it also doesn't make the wrong less wrong." Son of Saul , a 2015 Hungarian film directed by László Nemes , and winner of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, details the story of one Sonderkommando attempting to bury

288-411: A man to death in the undressing room under the eyes of a smiling SS member. Nelson emphasizes that the subject of the film is that very moral ambiguity. "We can see each one of ourselves in that situation, perhaps acting in that way, because we are human. But we're not sanctified victims." A "novelized" memoir, A Damaged Mirror (2014), by Yael Shahar and Ovadya ben Malka, explores the lengths to which

336-634: A part of Warsaw ). With his mother and two sisters, in early 1940 they went to Opatów , where his father was working on murals for the synagogue . But at this time, the Nazis began herding Polish Jews into ghettos all across the country. The Opatów Ghetto was established in the spring of 1941, originally without a fence. It quickly became hazardous. The Jews deported from Silesia were brought there, and an epidemic of typhus broke out, due to overcrowding and poor sanitation. Willenberg traded his father's paintings for food and other necessities, but also worked at

384-682: A picture of how our people perished. The manuscripts are kept primarily in the archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial Museum . Exceptions are Herman's letter (kept in the archives of the Amicale des déportés d'Auschwitz-Birkenau ) and Gradowski's texts, one of which is held in the Russian Museum of Military Medicine in St. Petersburg , and another in Yad Vashem , Israel. Some of

432-662: A steel mill in Starachowice for several months, along with hundreds of forced laborers supplied by the Judenrat . In 1942, the Nazis began their secretive Operation Reinhard — a planned extermination action of Jews in the semi-colonial General Government district — marking the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in Poland . The Willenbergs managed to obtain false "Aryan" papers, and escaped back to their hometown. The Ghetto in Częstochowa

480-630: Is a general term for special police and military forces in German, Dutch, and Afrikaans speaking nations. It was also the term in the World War II era Luftwaffe for special units used to test new aircraft for combat readiness (as Erprobungskommando units) and examples existed that only used the "Kommando" name, such as the Luftwaffe Gruppe -sized Kommando Nowotny . In the winter/spring 1945 period, single-plane Kommando -designated units that used

528-477: Is not documented). Buried and hidden accounts by members of the Sonderkommando were later found at some camps. Between 1943 and 1944, some members of the Birkenau Sonderkommando were able to obtain writing materials and record some of their experiences and what they had witnessed. These documents were buried in the grounds of the crematoria and recovered after the war. Five men have been identified as

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576-547: The Armia Krajowa (Polish: Home Army) transported some of the surviving escaped prisoners across the Bug River , while others were helped and fed by Polish villagers . Of the 700 Sonderkommando who took part in the revolt, 100 managed to survive and escape from the camp, and around 70 of these are known to have survived the war. These include Richard Glazar , Chil Rajchman , Jankiel Wiernik , and Samuel Willenberg , who co-wrote

624-523: The SS-Sonderkommandos , which were ad hoc units formed from members of various SS offices between 1938 and 1945. The German term was part of the vague and euphemistic language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the Final Solution (e.g., Einsatzkommando , "deployment units"). Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in killing; that responsibility was reserved for

672-593: The Arado Ar 234 Blitz jet powered reconnaissance-bomber operated from hidden, forest-lined runways in eastern Germany. Before and during World War II , the basic unit of organization of forced labourers in Nazi concentration camps , equivalent to a detail or detachment were referred to as Kommandos . Among the most notable of such units were the Sonderkommandos ( lit.   ' Special Kommandos ' ), carrying out

720-442: The Final Solution by guarding the newly arrived inmates, escorting them to gas chambers , searching the bodies and burning them. Außenkommandos were external work details that were set up, either leaving from the concentration camp or from outside the camp boundary. In Auschwitz : A Doctor's Eyewitness Account , concentration camp survivor Dr. Miklós Nyiszli (who served on Dr. Josef Mengele 's medical kommando ) describes

768-481: The Sonderkommando as enjoying a virtual feast, complete with chandeliers and candlelight, as other prisoners died of starvation. Nyiszli, an admitted collaborator who assisted Josef Mengele in his medical experiments on Auschwitz prisoners, would appear to have been in a good position to observe the Sonderkommando in action, as he had an office in Krematorium II. But some of his inaccurate physical descriptions of

816-479: The Sonderkommando was The Grey Zone , directed by Doug Hughes and produced in New York at MCC Theater in 1996. The play was later adapted as a film of the same title by producer Tim Blake Nelson . The film took its mood, as well as much of its plot, from Nyiszli, portraying members of the Sonderkommando as crossing the line from victim to perpetrator. Sonderkommando Hoffman (played by David Arquette ) beats

864-524: The Sonderkommando : "Not you, not me! We were not put to that ordeal!" The first depiction of the Sonderkommando revolt was titled Ikh leb (I live), a play written by Jewish author Moshe Pinchevski. It was also the first post-World War 2, Yiddish-language performance at the Idisher Kultur Farband Teater in Bucharest , Romania , in 1945. A theatre play that explores the moral dilemmas of

912-411: The Sonderkommandos might be euphemistically called Arbeitsjuden (Jews for work). At other times, Sonderkommandos were called Hilflinge (helpers). At Birkenau the Sonderkommandos numbered up to 400 people by 1943 and, when Hungarian Jews were deported there in 1944, their numbers swelled to more than 900 persons, in order to keep up with the increased rounds of murder and extermination. Because

960-671: The Treblinka Memoirs . In October 1944, the Sonderkommando rebelled at Crematorium IV in Auschwitz II . For months, young Jewish women workers had been smuggling small packets of gunpowder out of the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke, a munitions factory in an industrial area between the main camp of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II. The gunpowder was passed along a smuggling chain to Sonderkommando in Crematorium IV. The plan

1008-451: The "tooth-pulling kommando". These teams of eight, all "fine stomatologists and dental surgeons" equipped "in one hand with a lever, and in the other a pair of pliers for extracting teeth", worked in the crematoria . Stationed in front of the ovens, their job was to pry open the mouths of prisoners who had been gassed and extract, or break off, "all gold teeth , as well as any gold bridgework and fillings ". Other kommandos depended on

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1056-846: The Gas Chambers (1979). Among other incidents he related, Müller recounted how he tried to enter the gas chamber to die with a group of his countrymen but was dissuaded from suicide by a girl who asked him to remain alive and bear witness. Since the late 20th century, several other more sympathetic accounts of the Sonderkommando have been published, beginning with Gideon Greif's own book We Wept Without Tears (1999 in Hebrew, 2005 in English), which consists of interviews with former Sonderkommando members. Greif includes as his prologue Gunther Anders ' poem "And What Would You Have Done?", which says that one who has not been in that situation has little right to judge

1104-540: The Germans needed the Sonderkommandos to remain physically able, they were granted much less squalid living conditions than other inmates: they slept in their own barracks and were allowed to keep and use various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes brought into camp by those who were sent to the gas chambers. Unlike ordinary inmates, they were not normally subject to arbitrary killing by guards. Their livelihood and utility were determined by how efficiently they could keep

1152-539: The Holocaust by Polish Gentile families . He married Ada Willenberg (née Lubelczyk), who had escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto by climbing over a wall. In 1950, during the peak years of Stalinism in Poland , Willenberg emigrated to Israel with his wife and mother. Willenberg took up training as an engineer surveyor and obtained a long-term position of Chief Measurer at the Ministry of Reconstruction. He and his wife had

1200-514: The Jewish Auffanglager prisoners. He posed as a seasoned bricklayer to show he could work. Luckily, he was wearing a paint-stained smock-frock of his father's (an outer garment traditionally worn by rural workers), donned in Opatów in preparation for slave labor. Willenberg was the only person from his transport of 6,000 persons who escaped death in the gas chambers that day. At first, he

1248-571: The Nazi death factory running. As a result, Sonderkommando members survived longer in the death camps than other prisoners – but few survived the war. As they had detailed knowledge of the Nazis' practice of mass murder, the Sonderkommando were considered Geheimnisträger  – bearers of secrets. As such, they were held in isolation away from prisoners being used as slave labor (see SS Main Economic and Administrative Office ). There

1296-554: The SS, while the Sonderkommandos ' primary duty was disposing of the corpses. In most cases, they were inducted immediately upon arrival at the camp and forced into the position under threat of death. They were not given any advance notice of the tasks they would have to perform. To their horror, sometimes the Sonderkommando inductees would discover members of their own family amid the bodies. They had no way to refuse or resign other than by committing suicide. In some places and environments,

1344-648: The authors of these manuscripts: Zalman Gradowski , Zalman Lewental, and Leib Langfus , who wrote in Yiddish ; Chaim Herman, who wrote in French; and Marcel Nadjary , who wrote in Greek. Of the five, only Nadjary survived until liberation; Gradowski was killed in the revolt at Crematorium IV on 7 October 1944 (see below), or in retaliation for it; Lewental, Langfus, and Herman are believed to have been killed in November 1944. Gradowski wrote

1392-459: The camp, but most were recaptured later the same day. Of those who did not die during the uprising itself, 200 were later forced to strip and lie face down before being shot in the back of the head. A total of 451 Sonderkommandos were killed that day. The earliest portrayals of the Sonderkommando were generally unflattering. Miklos Nyiszli , in Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account , described

1440-682: The camp, were exhibited internationally. Since 1983, he was the co-organizer of regular visits of Israeli youth to Poland, known as the March of the Living . In 2003, the Warsaw National Gallery of Art Zachęta held an exhibition of his work. His sculpture was also shown at the Museum of Częstochowa in 2004. He created the Holocaust monument to the 40,000 victims of the Częstochowa Ghetto , which

1488-698: The course of the Nazi German invasion of Poland , on 6 September 1939 the 16-year-old Willenberg set off in the direction of Lublin to join the Polish Army as a volunteer. Within days, the Soviets invaded from the east. He was severely wounded on 25 September in a skirmish with the Red Army near Chełm , and captured. Three months later, he escaped from the hospital back to central Poland to reconnect with his family in Radość (now

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1536-711: The creation of a death camp's first Sonderkommando to the liquidation of the camp, there were approximately 14 generations of Sonderkommando . However, according to historian Igor Bartosik, author of Witnesses from the Pit of Hell: History of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando (2022) published by the Auschwitz Museum , the renewed exterminations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommandos are a myth, since such an extermination only took place there once. "Nor

1584-672: The crematoria diminishes his credibility in this regard. Historian Gideon Greif characterized Nyiszli's writings as among the "myths and other wrong and defamatory accounts" of the Sonderkommando , which flourished in the absence of first-hand testimony by surviving Sonderkommando members. Primo Levi , in The Drowned and the Saved , characterizes the Sonderkommando as being "akin to collaborators." He said that their testimonies should not be given much credence, since they had much to atone for and would naturally attempt to rehabilitate themselves at

1632-465: The expense of the truth. But, he asked his readers to refrain from condemnation: "Therefore I ask that we meditate upon the story of 'the crematorium ravens' with pity and rigor, but that judgment of them be suspended." Filip Müller was one of the few Sonderkommando members who survived the war and was also unusual in that he served on the Sonderkommando far longer than most. He wrote of his experiences in his book Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in

1680-487: The following note, found buried at an Auschwitz crematorium site: 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

1728-673: The job they were assigned to, such as woodcutting kommandos, factory kommandos or kitchen kommandos. Samuel Willenberg Like many other survivors, Willenberg emigrated to Israel . He received Poland's highest orders , including the Virtuti Militari and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit , awarded by President Lech Kaczyński . His memoir , Revolt in Treblinka , was published between 1986 and 1991 in Hebrew , Polish , and English. He

1776-582: The manuscripts were published as The Scrolls of Auschwitz , edited by Ber Mark. The Auschwitz Museum published some others as Amidst a Nightmare of Crime . The Scrolls of Auschwitz have been recognised as some of the most important testimony to be written about the Holocaust, as they include contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of the workings of the gas chambers in Birkenau. Sonderkommando prisoners participated in uprisings on two occasions. The first revolt occurred at Treblinka on 2 August 1943. Prisoners used

1824-563: The rank of cadet sergeant . After the surrender of Warsaw, he left the city with the civilian population. He escaped from the prisoner train in Pruszków and hid in the vicinity of Błonie until the Soviet liberation. In 1945–1946, Willenberg served in the Polish Army as a lieutenant . In 1947, he helped one of the Jewish organizations in Poland find Jewish children who had been taken in and rescued from

1872-461: The revolt of Sonderkommandos at Treblinka with about 200–300 others. Unlike most of them, he escaped. Wounded in the leg, he journeyed back to Warsaw, where he managed to find his father, who was hiding on the "Aryan" side of the city. Willenberg became involved in the underground resistance , including acquiring weapons for the left-wing partisan Polish People's Army PAL ( Polska Armia Ludowa PAL ). He used his mother's maiden name, Ignacy Popow. He

1920-451: Was a belief that every three months, according to SS policy, almost all the Sonderkommandos working in the death camps' killing areas would be gassed themselves and replaced with new arrivals to ensure secrecy, and that some inmates survived for up to a year or more because they possessed specialist skills. Usually, the task of a new Sonderkommando unit would be to dispose of the bodies of their predecessors. Research has calculated that from

1968-491: Was a sculptor and painter. Samuel Willenberg was born in Częstochowa , Poland. His father, Perec Willenberg, was a teacher at a local Jewish school before World War II , a talented painter and visual artist. He also earned money decorating synagogues. His mother, Maniefa Popow, was a Polish - Orthodox Christian who converted to Judaism after their wedding. The family lived in Częstochowa before relocating to Warsaw . In

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2016-539: Was assigned to the camp's largest Kommando Rot , unpacking and sorting the belongings of victims already "processed". He later recognized the clothes of his own two sisters there, confirming they had been killed. With time, he was assigned to other squads as number "937" in the Sonderkommando . Among their tasks was weaving tree branches into the barbed-wire fences in order to hide the grounds, buildings and lines of prisoners. On 2 August 1943 Willenberg participated in

2064-427: Was built as part of Operation Reinhard (the most deadly phase of the Final Solution ), operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 . During this time, more than 800,000 Jews —men, women, and children—were murdered there. Other estimates of the number killed at Treblinka exceed 1,000,000. Upon his arrival at Treblinka, Willenberg received a life-saving piece of advice at the unloading ramp, from one of

2112-643: Was hiding at a safe-house on Natolińska street, when the Warsaw Uprising erupted. In his memoir, Revolt in Treblinka , Willenberg wrote that on the first day of the Uprising he joined Batalion Ruczaj of the Armia Krajowa Sub-district I . He fought in Śródmieście along Marszałkowska Street and Savior Square . At the beginning of September 1944, he transferred to the Polish People's Army with

2160-792: Was it true that prisoners were selected for their technical expertise. After a cursory inspection, they were selected merely in view of their apparent ability to work," wrote Bartosik. Fewer than 20 of several thousand members of the Sonderkommandos are documented to have survived until liberation and to have testified about the events (although some sources claim more). Among them were Henryk (Tauber) Fuchsbrunner , Filip Müller , Daniel Behnnamias, Dario Gabbai , Morris Venezia , Shlomo Venezia , Antonio Boldrin, Alter Fajnzylberg, Samuel Willenberg , Abram Dragon, David Olère , Henryk Mandelbaum and Martin Gray . Another six or seven are confirmed to have survived, but did not give witness (or at least, such testimony

2208-436: Was set up on 9 April 1941. At its peak, it held around 40,000 prisoners. Willenberg's two sisters, Ita and Tamara, were transported there. His mother tried to rescue them and sent Willenberg back to Opatów . But on 20 October 1942 Willenberg was forced to board a Holocaust train along with 6,500 inmates of the then-liquidated Opatów ghetto, and was sent with them to the extermination camp at Treblinka . The camp, which

2256-451: Was to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria and launch an uprising. However, on the morning of 7 October 1944, the camp resistance warned the Sonderkommando in Crematorium IV that they were to be killed, and the Sonderkommando attacked the SS and Kapos with two machine guns, axes, knives, and grenades, killing three and injuring about a dozen more. Some of the Sonderkommando escaped from

2304-498: Was unveiled there in October 2009. Willenberg first published his memoir Revolt in Treblinka in 1986. (The English translation by Naftali Greenwood, was published by Oxford University Press, 1989), which he later published in Poland with the preface by Władysław Bartoszewski (1991 and 2004). On 19 February 2016, Willenberg died in Israel, the last survivor of the Treblinka revolt. He

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