The Jews forced to work on the gas chambers in the Holocaust: “I asked myself: where does God?”

In the extermination camps created by Nazi Germany, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, a special unit of Jewish prisoners called Sonderkommando was in charge of guiding other Jews in the gas chambers and removing and cremating their bodies.

Warning: This report contains extremely strong images, including corpses and descriptions of mass murders.

They were called SONDERKOMMANDOS -Ir members of a special unit created by the Nazis to work on extermination fields such as Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Holocaust.

But they were not German soldiers, not even allies.

The units of Sanderkommand They consisted of Jewish prisoners deported to Auschwitz by 16 different countries and their work nourished the car to kill.

“I worked in the cremators. I took the people [corpos] From gas chambers to ovens, “said Dario Gabbai.

The former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp was one of the last eye witnesses of the so -called “final solution”, the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jewish people from Europe, which culminated in the murder of six million Jews.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau complex is the site of the largest mass murder in human history: it is estimated that 1.1 million people were killed, of which over 90% of were Jews. This number is larger than the losses suffered by the United Kingdom and the United States for the whole war.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was finally released by Soviet troops on January 27, 1947. This date is now remembered as a day of the memory of the Holocaust.

Haircut

The members of Sanderkommand They were forced to help in the murder process. Hitler’s elite paramilitary units, known as SS, were responsible for the execution itself.

Before the bodies are cremated, the SONDERKOMMANDOS They had to look for the cavities of the victims in search of plants, such as golden teeth, and hidden valuable objects.

Gabbai had the specific task of cutting and gathering the hair of murdered women.

Decades later, he remembered how he felt in speaking with an American organization dedicated to the interview with the survivors of the Holocaust, Usca Shoah Foundation.

“I asked myself: how can I survive? Where is God?”

A nail polish told him to remain strong and took this advice seriously.

“I said, I’m a robot … close your eyes and do everything that must be done without asking a lot,” he added.

Testimonies

In the 80s, the historian of the Holocaust based on Israel, Gideon Greif, began to search SONDERKOMMANDOS.

Greif documented the 31 experience SONDERKOMMANDOS In your first book on them, We cried without tears (We cried without tears, in free translation).

One of the SONDERKOMMANDOS Documented by Greif was Ya’Akov, brother of Dario Gabbai.

Ya’akov saw two of his cousins ​​come to the gas chamber. He ordered them to sit next to where the gas was released to have a quick and painless death.

“Why should they suffer so much?”

Josef Sackar was the first Sanderkommand That Greif met in 1986. Sackar was often prominent to work in which women were forced to undress.

“I shot my head in another direction and I assured me they wouldn’t be very embarrassed,” said Sackar.

Shaul Chasan revealed, in turn, that he had to remove the bodies from the deaths of the gas cameras and place them in the elevators who would bring them to the cremators.

He said to Greif as he always struggled to ensure that the bodies were not dragged on earth and on the debris on the floor of the gas chambers.

Other Sanderkommand Tested as a group of naked Polish children started singing Shema YisraelA Jewish prayer and entered the gas chamber with a perfect discipline.

Flames

The Memorial of the Holocaust of Israel, Yad Vashem, observes how murders increased after the start of the deportation of the Hungarian Jews in May 1944.

“In just eight weeks, about 424,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

The number of deaths has significantly exceeded the capacity of the crematoria. But the German officer responsible for the cremators, Otto Moll, was unstoppable and ordered the SONDERKOMMANDOS Who crashed picked up to burn the bodies.

A clandestine photo taken by A Sanderkommand It clearly shows that the bodies are incinerated in an open moat – later, the image was evident on what had happened in the countryside.

Failed rebellion

You SONDERKOMMANDOS They have comparatively received more food and living conditions better than the rest of the prisoners, who have nourished only the watery soup.

However, the work offered little protection. The Nazis killed the members of theolder Every six months and evokes new recruits.

The Nazis applied a series of punishments to cause fear. This included filming, throwing them into bonfires, torture, beat and naked rolled on the gravel.

“They were constantly shock. They saw thousands of Jews to be murdered every day. It was a great challenge to stay alive,” says Greif.

They were also housed separately and monitored continuously. However, at a certain moment, they reacted to an event known as theolder.

“Two brothers were involved in planning the revolt on October 7, 1944. It was a Jewish revolt. A story of courage. It should be written in gold letters,” says Greif.

That day, some prisoners of Solder They attacked their SS guards with stones and burned a crematorium. The attack was quickly repressed and 451 SONDERKOMMANDOS They were shot to death.

Atrocity documentation

Others SONDERKOMMANDOSLike Marcel Nadjari, they recorded their anger in pieces of paper.

“I’m not sad to die, but I’m sad I can’t sell me as I would like,” Nadjari wrote in November 1944.

The ashes of each adult victims weighed about 640 grams, according to their notes.

The Greek Jew hid his 13 -page manuscript on a Thermos, which closed with a plastic lid. Then he put the bottle in a leather bag and buried it.

The notes left by Nadjari and others were recovered years later and carefully deciphered. Now they are known as the parchments of Auschwitz.

Provide valuable information on the size of the crimes.

In search of justice

Only about 100 SONDERKOMMANDOS He managed to survive war. Some played an active role in the judgments of war crimes.

Henryk Tauber witnessed the commander of the SS Otto Moll.

“On several occasions, Moll has launched live people in the flames,” Tauber recalled during the trial before an American military court.

In the end, Moll was condemned and hanged for his role in a “march of death”.

However, many criminals have never been punished. Of a total of about 7,000 employees in Auschwitz, only about 800 have faced the power of the law, according to Auschwitz, A series of documentaries of BBC/PBS.

Greif was witnessed as alleged Nazi criminals in the European courts, where suspicious Nazi have been tried.

Gabbai moved to Los Angeles, the United States, and died there in 2020. In 2015, he visited Auschwitz to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the release on the field. He told the BBC what he made him go on.

“I said (myself) that this war would end one day and when it ended, I could survive and tell the stories in the world.”

This report was originally published in January 2020.

Source: Terra

Rose

Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.