Inside The Gas Chambers Eight Months In The Sonderkommando Of Auschwitz

Author : Shlomo Venezia
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0745683770
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inside the Gas Chambers written by Shlomo Venezia and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-12-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique, eye-witness account of everyday life right at the heart of the Nazi extermination machine. Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a ‘Sonderkommando', without realising what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the ‘special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies. Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, ‘Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944. It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale - but, as a member of a ‘Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Author : Shlomo Venezia
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 0745643833
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inside the Gas Chambers written by Shlomo Venezia and published by Polity. This book was released on 2009-02-02 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique, eye-witness account of everyday life right at the heart of the Nazi extermination machine. Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a ‘Sonderkommando', without realising what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the ‘special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies. Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, ‘Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944. It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale - but, as a member of a ‘Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Author : Shlomo Venezia
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 9780745643847
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Inside the Gas Chambers written by Shlomo Venezia and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-04-04 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique, eye-witness account of everyday life right at the heart of the Nazi extermination machine. Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a ‘Sonderkommando', without realising what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the ‘special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies. Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, ‘Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944. It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale - but, as a member of a ‘Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Author : Zalmen Gradowski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226833232
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Last Consolation Vanished written by Zalmen Gradowski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024-05-06 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz. On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was in the Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz, a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Sonderkommandos were forcibly recruited by SS soldiers; when they discovered the horror of their assignment, some of them committed suicide or tried to induce the SS to kill them. Despite their impossible situation, many Sonderkommandos chose to resist in two interlaced ways: planning an uprising and testifying. Gradowski did both, by helping to lead a rebellion and by documenting his experiences. Within 120 scrawled notebook pages, his accounts describe the process of the Holocaust, the relentless brutality of the Nazi regime, the assassination of Czech Jews, the relationships among the community of men forced to assist in this nightmare, and the unbearable separation and death of entire families, including his own. Amid daily unimaginable atrocities, he somehow wrote pages that were literary, sometimes even lyrical—hidden where and when one would least expect to find them. The October 7th rebellion was completely crushed and Gradowski was killed in the process, but his testimony lives on. His extraordinary and moving account, accompanied by a foreword and afterword by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, is a voice speaking to us from the past on behalf of millions who were silenced. Their story must be shared.

Author : Gideon Greif
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300131984
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book We Wept Without Tears written by Gideon Greif and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "Sonderkommando of "Auschwitz-Birkenau consisted primarily of Jewish prisoners forced by the Germans to facilitate the mass extermination. Though never involved in the killing itself, they were compelled to be "members of staff" of the Nazi death-factory. This book, translated for the first time into English from its original Hebrew, consists of interviews with the very few surviving men who witnessed at first hand the unparalleled horror of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Some of these men had never spoken of their experiences before.

Author : Filip Müller
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538143305
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Eyewitness Auschwitz written by Filip Müller and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1999-08-24 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filip Müller came to Auschwitz with one of the earliest transports from Slovakia in April 1942 and began working in the gassing installations and crematoria in May. He was still alive when the gassings ceased in November 1944. He saw millions come and disappear; by sheer luck he survived. Müller is neither a historian nor a psychologist; he is a source—one of the few prisoners who saw the Jewish people die and lived to tell about it. Eyewitness Auschwitz is one of the key documents of the Holocaust.

Author : Kon Pierkarski
Publisher : Dundurn
ISBN 13 : 1554881560
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Escaping Hell written by Kon Pierkarski and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 1996-08-08 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping Hell is the compelling and true story of a heroic young Polish officer who survived the terror of five years in the prisons of Auschwitz and Buchenwald – where violence was meaningless because human life had lost all value. During World War II, Kon Piekarski was a member of the Polish Underground Army, a clandestine resistance movement which operated even inside Auschwitz – organizing spectacular escapes, operating a secret radio network and matching wits with the Gestapo. After Auschwitz, Piekarski became a prisoner of war at Buchenwald and spent time working in a factory where Russian prisoners of war were used for labour. In the face of constant danger, he and his comrades took every possible opportunity to sabotage the German war industry. He was finally transferred to a small camp near the French border, and escaped three months before the end of the war.

Author : Alvin H. Rosenfeld
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253000920
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.27/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The End of the Holocaust written by Alvin H. Rosenfeld and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An illuminating exploration that offers a worried look at Holocaust representation in contemporary culture and politics.” —H-Holocaust In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan’s 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank’s story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of “the end of the Holocaust” in public consciousness. “Forcefully written, as always, his new volume honors his entire life as teacher and writer attached to the principles of intellectual integrity and moral responsibility. Here, too, he demonstrates erudition and knowledge, a gift for analysis and astonishing insight. Teachers and students alike will find this book to be a great gift.” —Elie Wiesel “This remarkable new work of scholarship—written in accessible language and not in obscure academese—is exactly the Holocaust book the world needs now.” —Bill’s Faith Matters Blog “This book has monumental importance in Holocaust studies because it demands answers to the question how our culture is inscribing the Holocaust in its history and memory.” —Arcadia

Author : Michael Fleming
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107062799
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust written by Michael Fleming and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important contribution to the ongoing debate about what the Allies knew about the concentration camps during the Second World War.

Author : Martin Greenfield
Publisher : Regnery Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1621572668
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Measure of a Man written by Martin Greenfield and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He's been called "America's greatest living tailor" and "the most interesting man in the world." Now, for the first time, Holocaust-survivor Martin Greenfield tells his whole, incredible life story. Taken from his Czechoslovakian home at age fifteen and transported to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz with his family, Greenfield came face-to-face with "Angel of Death" Dr. Joseph Mengele and was divided forever from his parents, sisters, and baby brother. In haunting, powerful prose, Greenfield remembers his desperation and fear as a teenager alone in the death camp--and how an impulsive decision to steal an SS soldier's shirt dramatically altered the course of his life. He learned how to sew; and when he began wearing the shirt under his prisoner uniform, he learned that clothes possess great power and could even help save his life. Measure of a Man is the story of a man who suffered unimaginable horror and emerged with a dream of success. From sweeping floors at a New York clothing factory to founding America’s premier handmade suit company, Greenfield built a fashion empire. Now 86-years-old and working with his sons, Greenfield has dressed the famous and powerful of D.C. and Hollywood, including Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama and celebrities Paul Newman, Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jimmy Fallon. Written with soul-baring honesty and, at times, a wry sense of humor, Measure of a Man is a memoir unlike any other--one that will inspire hope and renew faith in the resilience of man.