Talk:Sonderkommando

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[edit] Sobibor

The Jewish Sonderkommando in Sobibor neither lead the revolt nor did they take part in the outbreak on 14 October 1943. The organising secret committee had unsuccessfully tried to contact them in Camp III, the killing site. All the members of the Sonderkommando were shot on 15 October. I think it will be OK to delete the reference to Sobibor. P. Witte 09:45, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] dual usage of term

Sonderkommando were SS units which carried out exterminations, disposed of dead bodies and erased traces of mass murder. Jewish Sonderkommando units were made up of Jewish camp prisoners who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria. One of these units staged an uprising in the Birkenau camp in 1941. Only at Auschwitz-Birkenau was the term used specifically regarding Jewish prisoners who carried out the functions of the gas chambers and crematoria. Other camps, such as Chelmno, the term Sonderkommando was used in relation to the SS gaurds overseeing the gas chambers and crematoria. They were also forces to rape their own kind.

Sonderkommando means "special command". There were many. Here is one that should be included/linked to:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_Elbe or: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_Elbe&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=9&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsonderkommando%2Belbe%26hl%3Den

[edit] "The Grey Zone"

"The Grey Zone" is the title of a chapter (about the sonderkommando) of Primo Levi's book, The Drowned and the Saved.

[edit] GWAR disambiguation

The "See also" link to GWAR points to the heavy metal band Gwar. I think a disambiguation is in order from someone who can explain the other meaning of GWAR that is implied in this article! --Theodore Kloba 19:56, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

We need this info tout suite, I don't want people to think my hometown friends are related to Nazi death camps! Lachatdelarue (talk) 00:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I also don't think the link is appropriate, so I deleted it Jacib 00:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just found that an anon had added the link to Gwar. A google search shows up nothing relevant when searching for "gwar" and "nazi death camp". I guess this person thought they were being funny. Lachatdelarue (talk) 00:35, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Actually, GWAR have a song named "Sonderkommando" (see here), hence the relevance. I agree with Jacib that it's inappropriate in this context. But in actuality there is an objective link between GWAR and Sonderkommando so I think we should reinstate the link with an explanatory comment. After all, it's not for us to say how appropriate a song is. --altmany 08:17, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks-- I didn't catch that in the Gwar article. It's relevant enough for me now that it's explained. --Theodore Kloba 13:55, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Names of surviving Sonderkommando?

Can you list the surviving member of the sonderkommando? Finally people who can go directly to the mass graves and say "dig here". I thought the day would never come. Thanks. -- posted by User:159.105.80.92 Dario Gabbai Frank Muller

[edit] Should attention not be drawn to the fact Jews were involved

I think it would be a decent illustration of the real human tragedy that the Nazis brought about in the camps. Laurence Rees book on Auschwitz may be a good read on someone looking to further their knowledge on the subject. Londo06 11:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revolt

The revolt in Auschwitz is in Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. I'd say that's a source, since the other one has no citation. It has two pages of detailed writing about the events but it contradicts what is written here. -Babylon pride (talk) 16:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


Agreed on the reference. Also, it should be made clear that it was the 12th Sonderkommado that revolted. Otherwise, the impression given is that Sonderkommando in toto revolted at some point. In fact, no other Sonderkommando "unit" revolted at Auschwitz. This is a serious problem in an article purporting to give an account of Sonderkommandos. Additionally, under the same subheading of "Work and Death" a sentence reads, "They were forced into the position", followed by "and accepted it because it meant a few more days or weeks of life, as well as vastly-better living conditions." This is not an account of facts; it is a value-laden statement. "Forced into" has no meaning. They were to die anyway, so they chose an alternative path to death. As did the 12th Sonderkommando. This, too, is critical to an encyclopedic entry on this topic. This entry is very sloppy.

[edit] Why members of the Sonderkommando "accepted" their selection

I do not think it is correct to say that those selected for Sonderkommando duty accepted their roles even in part because the conditions in which they lived were better ("accepted it because it meant . . . vastly-better living conditions. They would sleep in their own barracks, which more than any other in the camp resembled normal human dwellings; various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes") than conditions elsewhere in Birkenau. Members of the Sonderkommando were selected because they appeared to be in decent health; otherwise, selection was arbitrary and forced. Those selected "accepted," it seems from their own testimony, simply because they had no choice in the matter. Had conditions in the barracks been worse, they would have accepted as well, again, because they had no real options other than to assume their horrific burden. In fact, their duties were the most ghastly in the camps. Even minor disobedience meant severe punishment, including torture and probably death, and, at Auschwitz, in the beginning floggings and beatings were administered as a matter of course. Good sources for the predicament of the men chosen for the Sonderkommando are Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz and Gideon Greif, We Wept Without Tears. VanDiemen (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


Again, this is incorrect. Those chosen in extermination camps knew that death was imminent in any case. They chose an alternative path to death, that of obeying SS commands as to the conveying of people through the passage to death, and the manipulation of the bodies and possessions afterwards. Even if rejection of this resulted, in every case, in a bullet, it is still a choice. Greif is not as scholarly a source as Gilbert, or, probably, Nyiszli for that matter due to his naked and self condemning autobiography. Read "The Holocaust" by Gilbert or "Auschwitz" by Nyiszli first to assess the claims of Greif. Muller may be correct - for him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.29.39.196 (talk) 10:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "The first task of the new Sonderkommandos would be to dispose of their predecessors' corpses"

Not so, according to Gideon Greif, see footnote 34, p. 357, discussion of seven documented liquidations of Sonderkommando members at Birkenau as well as seven smaller and undocumented liquidations. In most cases, the liquidation took place outside Birkenau or in an area of Birkenau located at some distance from where the Sonderkommando worked. Only in the case of the corpses of the several hundred workers murdered after the uprising of October 1944, it appears, did members of the Sonderkommando dispose of "predecessors' corpses," although, strictly speaking, the corpses were not of their predecessors but of fellow Sonderkommando. VanDiemen (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


Maybe, but if all you have is a footnote, I'll take the book by Nyiszli. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.29.39.196 (talk) 10:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)