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Sonderkommando
''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''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 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"). Death factory workers ''Sonderkommando'' members did not participate directly in killing; that responsibility was reserved for 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles for whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years. In May 1940, German criminals br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question. After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the '' Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles for whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years. In May 1940, German criminals b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German ' were a sub-group of the ' (mobile killing squads) – up to 3,000 men total – usually composed of 500–1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to exterminate Jews, Polish intellectuals, Romani, and communists in the captured territories often far behind the advancing German front.Thomas Urban, reporter of the Süddeutsche Zeitung; Polish text in Rzeczpospolita, Sept 1–2, 2001 ''Einsatzkommandos'', along with '' Sonderkommandos'', were responsible for the systematic murder of Jews during the aftermath of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. After the war, several commanders were tried in the Einsatzgruppen trial, convicted, and executed. Organization of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' ''Einsatzgruppen'' (german: special-ops units) were paramilitary groups originally formed in 1938 under the direction of Reinhard Heydrich – Chief of the SD, and '' Sicherheitspolizei'' (Security Police; SiPo). They we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dario Gabbai
David Dario Gabbai (September 2, 1922 – March 25, 2020) was a Greek Sephardi Jew and Holocaust survivor, notable for his role as a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz. He was deported to the camp in March 1944 and put to work in one of the crematoria at Birkenau, where he was forced to assist in burning the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews that were deported to the camp during the spring and summer of that year. Gabbai remained at Auschwitz until its evacuation in January 1945. He was liberated from Ebensee concentration camp in Austria by the United States Army, and spoke publicly about what he witnessed and experienced during the Holocaust. He was the last of the known survivors of the Sonderkommando. Deportation Gabbai was born in Thessaloniki to a Greek mother and an Italian father and was educated in Italian schools in Greece. At the age of 21 or 22 years old, Gabbai and his entire family were detained by the Nazis on March 24, 1944, and on April 1 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henryk Tauber
''Henryk (Tauber) Fuchsbrunner'' (8 July 1917 – 3 January 2000) was a Polish Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during the Holocaust, who gave detailed testimony at the end of World War II. Tauber was his mother's maiden name. His parents were married by a rabbi and never filed for a civil licence due to quotas on the number of Jewish marriages in Galicia then under Austrian rule. Henryks father's name was Abraham Fuchsbrunner and Fuchsbrunner was the name by which he was known. Henryk Fuchsbrunner shortened his name to Henry Fuchs after he arrived in the United States in 1952. Fuchsbrunner was one of five children. He lived with his extended family in Chrzanów in south Poland before the outbreak of war. After several deportations, Tauber arrived at the Kraków Ghetto. After avoiding capture by the Germans for over 3 years, he was arrested in November 1942 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Shortly after arriving at Auschwitz, he was selected for work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extermination Camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps also used extermination through labour in order to kill their prisoners. The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities, to which the victims were taken by train, was the result of earlier Nazi experimentation with chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive Aktion T4 euthanasia programme against hospital patients with mental and physical disabilities. The technology was adapted, expanded, and applied in w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death Camp
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps also used extermination through labour in order to kill their prisoners. The idea of mass extermination with the use of stationary facilities, to which the victims were taken by train, was the result of earlier Nazi experimentation with chemically manufactured poison gas during the secretive Aktion T4 euthanasia programme against hospital patients with mental and physical disabilities. The technology was adapted, expanded, and applied in wartime ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treblinka Extermination Camp
Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the Treblinka, Masovian Voivodeship, village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. During this time, it is estimated that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered in its gas chambers, along with 2,000 Romani people. More Jews were murdered at Treblinka than at any other Nazi extermination camp apart from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Managed by the German Schutzstaffel, SS with assistance from Trawniki men, Trawniki guards – recruited from among Soviet POWs to serve with the Germans – the camp consisted of two separate units. Treblinka I was a forced-labour camp (''Arbeitslager'') whose prisoners worked in the gravel pit or irrigat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS-Sonderkommandos
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ''All ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chełmno Extermination Camp
Chełmno or Kulmhof was the first of Nazi Germany's extermination camps and was situated north of Łódź, near the village of Chełmno nad Nerem. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the area into the new territory of Reichsgau Wartheland. The camp, which was specifically intended for no other purpose than mass murder, operated from , to , parallel to Operation Reinhard during the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, and again from , to , during the Soviet counter-offensive. In 1943, modifications were made to the camp's killing methods as the reception building had already been dismantled. At the very minimum, 152,000 people were murdered in the camp, which would make it the fifth deadliest extermination camp, after Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór. However, the West German prosecution, citing Nazi figures during the Chełmno trials of 1962–65, laid charges for at least 180,000 victims. The Polish official estimates, in the early postwar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and '' Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filip Müller
Filip Müller (3 January 1922 – 9 November 2013) was a Jewish Slovak Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ... and ''Sonderkommando'' at Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German concentration camp during World War II, where he witnessed the murders of tens of thousands of people. Auschwitz Müller was born in Sereď in the Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), Czechoslovak Republic. In April 1942, he was sent on one of the earliest Holocaust train, Holocaust transports to Auschwitz II where he was given prisoner number 29236. Müller was assigned to the ''Sonderkommando'' that worked on the construction of crematoria and the installation of the gas chambers. Once the crematoria were completed, Müller was assigned to a ''Sonderkommando'' unit tasked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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