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 Cover of 2001 edition
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"The Sonderkommando at Auschwitz: Book Essay on: by Alivia Birdwell for Prof. Marcuse's lecture course Germany, 1900-1945 |
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About Alivia Birdwell Alivia is a senior Global Studies major at UCSB. She studied abroad in Spain, and has taken other courses that cover German history, including a religion and film course that covered the Holocaust. Abstract (back to top) Miklos Nyiszli (1901-1956) was a Hungarian doctor who was deported to Auschwitz with his wife and daughter in August 1944. He volunteered as a doctor and was put to work conducting autopsies and operations in a room in crematorium 3 in Birkenau, where he observed the murder operation close hand for a long period. His memoir was used as the basis for the 2001 film The Grey Zone about the Sonderkommando in Birkenau. |
Essay (back to top) “An inscrutable will has sent our people to its death; fate has allotted us the cruelest of tasks, that of participating in our own destruction, of witnessing our own disappearance, down to the very ashes to which we are reduced” (Nyiszli 196). The Sonderkommando was a group of Jewish prisoners that received special treatment for performing some of the most grisly duties in the concentration camp. Members were able-bodied males, selected for their occupation, abilities, or willingness to participate in the group. Their task was to aide in the extermination and disposal of their fellow Jews. They led prisoners into gas chambers with the tale that they were entering showers to be disinfected and would reunite with their families shortly. Then they disposed of the bodies into crematoriums and burning pryes. Members of the Sonderkammando performed these tasks in order to extend their lives for four months and receive extra rations of food, which many dispersed to less fortunate prisoners. Holocaust survivors express mixed opinions of the Sonderkommando and debate whether this privileged group of prisoners were victims of the Nazi regime or collaborators with the enemy. Primo Levi defined them as “akin to collaborators.” However, former members of the Sonderkommando feel they are just as much victims as the rest of the prisoners (Shields). Auschwitz is Dr. Miklos Nyiszli’s, KZ prisoner number A 8450, personal testimony of life within the extermination camps (23). As an experienced pathologist and member of the Sonderkommando, Dr. Nyiszli’s life was spared while many of his compatriots met their fate in the extermination camp. Auschwitz asserts that participation in the Sonderkommando was a survival tactic, a way to protect one’s family, and a means to better the lives of less fortunate. From the perspective of Dr. Nyiszli, the Sonderkommandos experienced a different form of victimization as they bore witness to the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. “At Auschwitz it was never a question of whether you would live or die, but merely a question of time, of when you would die” (91). The Sonderkommando, a privileged group of prisoners, aided in the extermination of their fellow Jews in order to prolong their lives. Men were selected based on personal and professional qualifications to become a member of the Sonderkommando, a group commonly referred to as the “kommando of the living dead” (6). The group was comprised of 860 males. Their living conditions were considered luxurious in comparison to the majority of prisoners who either perished upon first arrival or slaved day-on-end until they died from malnourishment and exhaustion. This group performed the grisly task of misleading their fellow prisoners to their deaths in order to extend their own lives for three or four more months (6). Dr. Nyiszli arrived at Auchwitz in May, 1944, after traveling in a cattle car with 90 other people for four days, Upon exiting the car, Jews were immediately subject to selection . Nr. Nyiszli broke ranks and offered his knowledge of pathology to Dr. Mengele. He stepped forward, unaware of the tasks ahead of him or the circumstances of the Sonderkommando, with the hope of bettering his life in the hellish extermination camp. Dr. Nyiszli engaged in experiments on corpses to prove Dr. Mengele’s racial theories on the genetic inferiorities of the Jewish population. In one instance, Dr. Nyiszli examined a father and son who demonstrated physical deformities. He conversed with them while giving them a physical examination, provided them with a hearty meal, and told them they would be sent to a work camp. Moments later, they returned dead, with bullet holes in the back of their necks to be dissected (178). Dr. Nyiszli “dissected hundreds of bodies during his time in Auchwitz. His work aided the Nazi propaganda machine and helped them to prove their racial theories, which in turn acted as a justification for mass murder (221). Although his reports were used as Nazi propaganda, Dr. Nyiszli used his position to provide dying Jews with medical supplies. He followed SS orders while quietly resisting in order to live and one day tell this tale. The Sonderkommando experienced a different form of victimization. Instead of being murdered upon arrival, they bore witness to the annihilation of the elderly, children, women, and men. They opened the crematorium doors where “blood oozed from [victims’] noses and mouths; their faces [were] bloated and blue” and “so deformed as to be almost unrecognizable, However, several men recognized their own kin and transported their family members’ bodies to the crematorium where they were forced to place them into an enormous stove (52). The Sonderkommando squads were assigned different tasks regarding the processing and disposing of their fellow Jews. One group was required to sort through recently exterminated prisoners’ luggage. All perishable food items became “property of the legal heirs, of those who were still alive, that is, the Sonderkommando” (45). Another group pulled gold fillings from the mouths of dead Jews. Some people pocketed gold or other treasures they found amongst the remains (73). Dr. Nyiszli initially expressed disgust with those that pilfered a murdered person’s belongings. However, he felt that if any should profit from their belongings, it should be the Sonderkommando. “To be condemned to death and yet forced to perform jobs such as we had to perform day after day was enough to break the body and soul of the strongest among us, and to drive many to the brink of insanity” (74). Gold made life “more bearable” for at least one more day (74). Dr. Nyiszli describes the spectacle of opening the doors to a gas chamber after a mass extermination. Bodies are piled high to the ceiling as the victims climbed on top of one another in their fight for fresh air. If the victims had thought of what they were doing “they would have realized they were trampling their own children, their wives, their relatives” (52). This comment reflects the atmosphere of the camp and the sentiment of the majority of the prisoners. The traumatic gas chamber experience leaves no room for sanity. The quest for survival over-powered feelings of guilt. Such were the feelings, that led many to volunteer for the Sonderkommando ranks. The willingness to perform any task in order to live. Some Jews volunteered for the Sonderkommando with the hope of helping their family. Although members of the Sonderkommando did not pour Cyclon B gas into the gas chambers, they did mislead fellow Jews into believing they were merely bathing as opposed to being exterminated. The Jews trusted them and believed what they were told. However, can you condemn the Sonderkommando for their actions? They, too, were trying to survive and protect their families. The Sonderkommando experienced a different trauma. They knew the rumors of the crematorium and gas chambers were true as they had to load thousands of corpses into burning pyres and massive stoves. Sonderkommando crews were granted three to four months of “nerve-racking tension, waiting, day by day” for the moment they would meet their fate (169). Dr. Nyiszli was a recognized pathologist and a member of the Sonderkommando, which enabled him to ensure the lives of his wife and daughter. He received permission from his superior, Dr. Mengele, to search for his family. With a pass he was given free range of the different camps. Upon finding his wife and daughter in C Camp he was overwhelmed with questions from other female prisoners regarding the function of the crematorium and the smoke that filled the air. He denied the true purpose of the crematoriums and told them they would return home soon (142). He intentionally lied to his compatriots to protect his family and prevent chaos. Can a Sonderkommando be condemned for keeping the secrets of the extermination camp in order to save a family member? Dr. Nyiszli did what many people would do for his family and in the process, he assisted other women by supplying “blocks of sugar, butter, jam, and bread” (144). He learned of the KZ’s plan to liquidate C Camp and bribed SS officers with cigarettes so that his wife and daughter would be selected for a convoy leaving the camp (146). Being a member of the Sonderkommando presented the opportunity for resistance. However, being a member and lying to fellow Jews as to the purpose of the “baths” is conspiring with the enemy. Being a member of the Sonderkommando meant that a person could access materials and ammunition to fight back against the concentration camp system. The Sonderkommando crew of 860 men, of which Dr. Nyiszli was a member, learned of the SS’s plan to liquidate them. The men planned to revolt against the SS and escape to reveal the horrors of the extermination camp system. They carefully smuggled hand grenades and machine guns into the camp in preparation for their revolt. They succeeded in destroying crematorium three and damaging the machinery of crematorium four such that is was no longer operable (167). Of the 860 men, only 7 survived including Dr. Nyiszli. Although they knew they would be killed, this Sonderkommando squad decided to fight back at the hour of the their death to “die as men, not living corpses” (10). They succeeded in damaging two crematoriums, which in turn slowed the extermination process and bought their fellow Jews more time. “It was our bound duty to make certain that the world learned of the unimaginable cruelty and sordidness of a people who pretended to be superior” (123). Dr. Nyiszli felt that being a member of the Sonderkommando was to bear witness to a one of the most atrocious events in History. Dr. Nyiszli’s horrifying account of his experience at Auschwitz negates the suggestion that members of the Sonderkommando were victimizers and collaborators. Most Sonderkommando members did not conspire with the enemy, but complied to their assigned duties in order to prolong their lives for three or four more months. The book demonstrates how many members of the Sonderkommando used their elevated status to better the lives of others. In addition to expanding the length of their own lives, they were able to smuggle extra food rations, clothing, medical supplies, and cigarettes to less fortunate Jews, which bettered their time in the camp and made their lives slightly more comfortable. Auschwitz unveils the inner workings of the extermination camp system and describes another form of victimization. |
Bibliography and Links (back to top)(links last checked 3/x/07)
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Any student tempted to use this paper for an assignment in another course or school should be aware of the serious consequences for plagiarism. Here is what I write in my syllabi:
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