The Sonderkommandos

1. I think the Sonderkommando’s changed every few months because since the Nazis had so many
Jewish prisoners on their hands, the Nazi soldiers were more than dedicated to get rid of the existing
ones and have the new ones come in to perform the duties.

2. I think that some of the Jews were ‘willing’ to be Sonderkommando’s because some Jewish people
have decided to end their lives because all of their family is gone and they have nowhere else to go
in life other than to die in the camps. In other words, the Jews wanted to become
Sonderkommando’s because they want to commit suicide.

3. The duties of the Sonderkommando’s are:

- Guiding the new arrivals into the gas chambers

- Removing the bodies afterwards

- Shaving hair

- Removing teeth

- Sorting through possessions (Much of which they were given as reward)

- Cremating the bodies

- Disposing of the ashes

4. The sonderkommando’s received the Jew’s possessions as a reward.

 The revolt at Auschwitz

Newspaper front cover:

Cremating the Corpses After the Revolting Murders of

Auschwitz, Germany
Date: January 28th, 1945

Cremation of Jews in Auschwitz, Germany by Nazi soldiers:

On the October the 7th, 1944, Crematorium 1 began the revolt. Crematoria 3 & 4 join while
the Sonderkommando of Crematorium 2 break the wires of the camp. In crematorium 1, a
sadistic Nazi guard was disarmed and then stuffed into the oven to be burned alive. Arms
fire rattles from the 2nd floor of the crematoria. As the arms fire, prisoners were killed
indiscriminately. Some men were spared, but were interrogated afterwards. The men
interrogated gave names of women up that were smuggling gunpowder. On the January the
5th, 1945, four women are hanged in front of the assembled women’s camp. Crematorium 4
was damaged beyond repair and was never used again. On the November the 7 th, 1944, the
Nazis destroyed gas chambers to hide the incriminating evidence against them and twelve
days after hanging the women, camp personnel forced 56,000 prisoners on a death march.
7,500 prisoners were liberated by advancing Soviet armies on the January the 27 th, 1945.
This day is now considered as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Remains of Crematorium 4 in
A Sonderkommando standing beside Auschwitz, Germany.
the truck, working for the Nazi
soldiers.