Self Preservation: Life in the Sonderkommando
In 1944 Shlomo Venezia became a prisoner of Auschwitz. One of the most notorious death camps in Germany. During this time he was in a special area of the camp called Sonderkommando. The Sonderkommando was responsible for the gas chambers. Their job was to help usher people into the chamber, after they had gotten undressed, and then drag their bodies out. They were kept away from the other prisoners, and were only allowed to interact with other Sonderkommando. This was to keep other camp prisoners from knowing the mass genocide that took place in the gas chambers. After the people were gassed, and drug out from the chamber, their bodies were burned in ovens that operated twenty four hours a day. Sonderkommando worked twelve hour shifts removing bodies, and cleaning the gas chamber for the next group. For them it became nothing but a job, a way to survive. The endless death and horrors became common place. During his eight months in the Sonderkommando Shlomo saw hundreds of thousand