Alberto Israel Errera ( el, Αλβέρτος Ερρέρα, 15 January 1913 – August 1944) was a Greek-Jewish officer and a member of the

anti-Nazi resistance Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, r ...

. He was a member of the '' Sonderkommando'' in

Auschwitz-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 con ...

from May to August 1944. He took part in the preparation of the ''Sonderkommando'' Uprising of 1944. He is one of the possible authors of the ''Sonderkommando'' photographs. Errera died in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Biography

Errera was born in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Before the war, he was a soldier in the

Hellenic Army The Hellenic Army ( el, Ελληνικός Στρατός, Ellinikós Stratós, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece. The term ''Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is the ...

, where he was promoted to officer and achieved the rank of

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. He married a woman called Matthildi from

Larissa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...

, where he settled and owned a supermarket. He joined the partisans and the

Greek People's Liberation Army Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

during the German occupation of Greece, working as a food supplier. He took the Christian name Alex (Alekos) Michaelides, or, according to his nephew, Alexandros Alexandris.See interview of his nephew : Alberto Errera photograph 280 Sonderkommando Auschwitz
Alexandros Alexandridis was the code name of the brother of Alberto Errera, Samuel Errera, who died as a resistance fighter in Thebes, Greece, in an airstrike. On the night of 24 March 1944, he was arrested by the Germans in Larissa, in addition to a group of 225 Jews, and then jailed in the Haidari concentration camp. According to his nephew, he was captured, not as a Jew, but as a leftist. He was deported from Athens on 2 April and arrived at Auschwitz on 11 April, at which point he was one of the 320 Greek (assigned serial numbers from 182,440 to 182,759) selected for labor. His number was 182,552. After spending two days in the ''Zentral Sauna'' in

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 con ...

, he and the other Greek men lived in the ''Block'' 12 of the ''Männerquarantäne Lager'' from April 13 to May 11. Then he was selected, along with 100 Greeks, to be part of the '' Sonderkommando''. He was assigned the job of a ''Heizer'' (" stoker"), a member of the ''Sonderkommando'' assigned to the

crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be ...

furnace, in Birkenau ''Krematorium'' V.

Alter Fajnzylberg Alter may refer to: * Alter (name), people named Alter * Alter (automobile) * Alter (crater), a lunar crater * Alter Channel, a Greek TV channel * Archbishop Alter High School, a Roman Catholic high school in Kettering, Ohio * ALTER, a command in ...

talks about his athletic buildAlter Fajnzylberg, ''Les cahiers d'Alter Fajnzylberg : ce que j'ai vu à Auschwitz'', Éditions Rosiers, 2014. and

Leon Cohen Leon Cohen ( el, Λεών Κοέν; born 15 January 1910 in Thessaloniki, Greece and died in August 1989 in Bat Yam, Israel), was a Jewish-Greek survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was a member of the ''Sonderkommando'' in Birkenau ...

describes his unusual strength.Leon Cohen, ''From Greece to Birkenau : the crematoria workers'uprising'', Salonika Jewry Research Center, 1996. According to

Filip Müller Filip Müller (3 January 1922 – 9 November 2013) was a Jewish Slovak Holocaust survivor and ''Sonderkommando'' at Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German concentration camp during World War II, where he witnessed the murders of tens of thousand ...

, Leon Cohen, and the historian and fellow prisoner

Hermann Langbein Hermann Langbein (18 May 1912 – 24 October 1995) was an Austrian communist resistance fighter and historian. He fought in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades for the Spanish Republicans against the Nationalists under Francis ...

, Errera was among those who actively participated in the preparations for the ''Sonderkommando'' Uprising, alongside Yaacov Kaminski, Jankiel Handelsmann, Jukl Wrobel, Josef Warszawski, a man named Władek,

Giuseppe Baruch Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. It is the most common name in Italy and is unique (97%) to it. The feminine form of the name is Giusep ...

and

Zalman Gradowski Zalman Gradowski or Chaim Zalman Gradowski (1910 – 7 October 1944) originally from Suwałki, was a Polish Jewish prisoner of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. On November 2, 1942, he was dep ...

, among others. According to Izack Cohen, who worked in the '' Kanada Kommando'', Errera was the leader of the Greek resistance group in ''Krematorium'' ''V''. He tried to recruit Izack Cohen in the resistance group. Through the testimony of Alter Fajnzylberg, it has been revealed that it was Errera who took the famous "

Sonderkommando photographs The ''Sonderkommando'' photographs are four blurred photographs taken secretly in August 1944 inside the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. Along with a few photographs in the Auschwitz Album, they are the only ones known ...

" in the beginning of August 1944, with the help of , another member of the resistance, and three other members of the ''Sonderkommando'', Szlama Dragon, his brother, and Alter Fajnzylberg, who kept watch. After taking the photographs, Errera buried the camera in the soil at the camp, for retrieval and discovery later. On 9 August 1944, during the transport from the crematoria of ash that was to be discharged into the

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

, Errera tried to convince his three co-detainees (including Hugo Baruch Venezia and Henri Nechama Capon) to escape, but they refused. Once on site, Errera stunned the accompanying two ''Schupos'' with a shovel and plunged into the Vistula. He was caught during the next two or three days, tortured and killed. As was usual when a fugitive was caught, Errera's body was exposed at the men's camp entrance (BIId) as an example to the other inmates. Errera was awarded by the Greek government in the 1980s for his contribution in the Greek resistance during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

The ''Sonderkommando'' photographs

For many years, the author of the

was unknown. The photographs were credited as anonymous or, by default, assigned to Dawid Szmulewski, who himself mentioned a Greek Jew named Alex. The story of these photos was recorded in the writings of Alter Fajnzylberg, who evokes the figure of the Greek Jew named Alex (although he forgot the surname). In May 1978, Fajnzylberg answered a letter from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, about the photographs. He wrote:

It was Alex from Greece, but I do not remember his name, who took the photographs. He died during an escape during the transport of ash from incinerated people. These ashes were regularly dumped in the Sola or in the Vistula. Alex disarmed both SS escort and threw their rifles into the Vistula. He died during the pursuit. I do not remember where the camera and other documents were buried because it asAlex who performed this work.

However, in his diaries written immediately after the war, Fajnzylberg mentions the attempted escape of a Greek Jew named Aleko Errera. His escape struck Fajnzylberg was also told by several surviving witnesses: Errikos Sevillias, Shlomo Venezia,

, Marcel Nadjary, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli,

Henryk Mandelbaum Henryk Mandelbaum (December 15, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was a Polish Holocaust survivor. He was one of the prisoners in the '' Sonderkommando KL Auschwitz-Birkenau'' in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory. ...

, Albert Menasche, Daniel Bennahmias and

Eddy de Wind Eddy de Wind (''né'' Eliazar de Wind; February 6, 1916 – September 27, 1987) was a Holocaust survivor and the author of the memoir ‘Eindstation Auschwitz. Mijn verhaal vanuit het kamp (1943–1945)', which was published in the United States ...

. Eddy de Wind, ''Terminus Auschwitz'', Michel Lafon, 2020. Eddy de Wind, ''Eindstation Auschwitz'', Republiek der Letteren, 1946. File:Auschwitz Resistance 280.jpg, ''Sonderkommando'' in Auschwitz-Birkenau, August 1944 (clandestine photo) File:Auschwitz Resistance 281.jpg, ''Sonderkommando'' in Auschwitz-Birkenau, August 1944 (clandestine photo) File:Auschwitz Resistance 282a.jpg, ''Sonderkommando'' in Auschwitz-Birkenau, August 1944 (clandestine photo) File:Alberto Errera - Sonderkommando photograph 283.jpg, ''Sonderkommando'' in Auschwitz-Birkenau, August 1944 (clandestine photo)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Errera, Alberto 1913 births 1944 deaths People who died in Auschwitz concentration camp Sonderkommando Hellenic Army officers Greek Resistance members Greek Jews who died in the Holocaust Sephardi Jews who died in the Holocaust Jewish resistance members during the Holocaust Jewish military personnel Jews from Thessaloniki Greek Sephardi Jews Civilians killed in World War II