Sonderkommando Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the days following the Red Army’s liberation of the concentration camp zone of Auschwitz- Birkenau in January 1945, several manuscripts concealed in make-shift wrappings were found buried in the vicinity of the crematoriums. Three of them were written in Yiddish. Their authors were Sonderkommandos, special units of deportees in charge of operating the crematoriums and adjoining installations of the death industry conceived by the Nazis the undressing room, gas chamber, ovens and incineration pits. These texts are the most terrifying and perhaps the most authentic literature about what the Nazis called ìthe fi nal solution of the Jewish question. Four Sonderkommandos made sworn statements before courts just after their liberation. These manuscripts, written at the very time of their functioning, and the testimonies made in the weeks that followed, reveal what the Nazis sought to conceal and erase at any price, how the extermination process was conducted at Auschwitz.