Language:
French
Year of publication:
1990
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
20 (1990) 273-312
Keywords:
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
;
Nazi concentration camps
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Personal narratives
Abstract:
Deals with the diaries written in Yiddish by three Sonderkommando men - Zalman Gradowski, Zalman Levental, and Leib Langfus. All three buried their notes near the crematoria prior to their execution. Sketches their biographies and Jewish religious background, analyzing the diaries in order to explain how they coped with the realities they faced, how they perceived their own fate, how their religiosity affected their behavior and relations with other inmates. Remarks on the importance of their testimonies on some events which they witnessed, such as the liquidation of the "family camp" of Czech Jews on 8 March 1944; the execution of 200 members of the Sonderkommando in September 1944; the execution of transports of children and women; numerical data of prisoners gassed in October 1944. All three were involved in underground activities and in preparation of the uprising. Explores psychological and moral aspects associated with the accomplishment of their "tasks", their relations with the victims, their remarks on the Nazis' sadism, and their reflections on the fate of the Jewish people.
Note:
Another version appeared in "Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp" (1994). In French: "Revue d'Histoire de la Shoah" 171 (2001) and in "Des voix sous la cendre" (2008) 465-515. In Hebrew:
,
"אושוויץ; אנטומיה של מחנה מוות" (תשסג)
URL:
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