Sonderkommando

[Wise1]

Being a member of the Sonderkommando at an extermination camp brought privileges few other camp prisoners had.

You got to live apart from everyone else, you could organise lots of items, food being the main one.

However there was a price, being a member of the Sonderkommando meant your job was to dispose of the your fellow Jews once they had been to the Chamber. It was your job to cremate the bodies and keep the crematoriums at full working capacity for the thousands that would pass through each day.

I personally cant imagine what that would be like, I would think the members of the sonderkommando would harden to the job, but of course never come to terms with being forced into such a cruel manner of work (if you can call it that!)

Because of what they did none of these men were ever allowed to mix with other camp prisoners for fear of the Germans plans getting out.

Of course it did not take long for the prisoners around the camp to realise exactly what went on at those buildings.

[Kiwiwriter]

SoOnderkommandos themselves were often exterminated after a few months to keep them quiet. Dead men tell no tales....

[angie999]

Filip Muller, mentioned elsewhere, survived several "liquidations" of the Sonderkommando.

They also did this during quiet periods when few trains were coming in, which happened from time to time, to save having to feed them.

[Wise1]

What interested me about Filip Muller was that he was posted to the Sonderkommando for trying to sneak down and steal some tea from the urns and got caught.

I suppose the SS thought that they would be punishing him and lead to eventual death. Unknown to them of course they were letting him survive in a long round about way!

[morse1001]

Originally Posted by Lee Wisener

What interested me about Filip Muller was that he was posted to the Sonderkommando for trying to sneak down and steal some tea from the urns and got caught.

I suppose the SS thought that they would be punishing him and lead to eventual death. Unknown to them of course they were letting him survive in a long round about way!

he was lucky most members of the sonderskommandos were killed

[Wise1]

Yes he was, only a few survived.

[Kiwiwriter]

Originally Posted by Lee Wisener

Being a member of the Sonderkommando at an extermination camp brought privileges few other camp prisoners had.

I personally cant imagine what that would be like, I would think the members of the sonderkommando would harden to the job, but of course never come to terms with being forced into such a cruel manner of work (if you can call it that!)

Because of what they did none of these men were ever allowed to mix with other camp prisoners for fear of the Germans plans getting out.

Of course it did not take long for the prisoners around the camp to realise exactly what went on at those buildings.

Actually, having been through basic training, I have a slight glimmer of how it's possible. Harsh discipline, little sleep, endless exertion, very little food, continuous exhaustion, and absolute isolation from any semblance of a "normal life" will change you in many ways.

By the time we hit the last day of basic training in my Navy boot company, we were a machine that went of itself. We did our routine like clockwork, often with nobody to tell us what to do, but completely obedient to the rules and regulations. We talked like our company commanders, we sounded like them, we even twirled our little rope stubs that held our towels like them. We were obedient little drones, with no thought of or connection to the outside world. Everything beyond the barbed-wire fence was an abstraction.

One of my biggest memories, on that last day, was how when the guy who turned on the lights every morning did so, he did it half an hour early. We moaned at him for doing so, as it denied us a precious extra half hour of sleep. It did not occur to any of us that maybe getting up early on the getaway day would be a good thing...we were completely tied to routine.

The other memory was after I flew home...sitting in my brother's house in Hoboken, sipping tea, in an overstuffed chair, talking about Mozart. Six hours before, I had been cleaning out a shower in dungarees, with everyone cursing nonstop. I felt like I was supposed to be back in the camp. I had been "institutionalized."

So I can see how the Sonderkommandos adjusted.

[Wise1]

I agree, when I was in the army in the UK it was the toughest thing I ever did, the period of adjustment past and you always wondered why the fuss, it must have been the same in terms of circumstance but entirely different of course for the Sonders and every one else.

[morse1001]

Actually, having been through basic training, I have a slight glimmer of how it's possible. Harsh discipline, little sleep, endless exertion, very little food, continuous exhaustion, and absolute isolation from any semblance of a "normal life" will change you in many ways.

That is what basic trtaining was suppossed to do. the intenetion was to break you and then mould you to what they wanted.

With the Sonderkommando, it was a case of basic human survival. From reading the various acounts, many managed to cope and others did not. it was the same with the Einszatgruppen, but many more of them did not manage to cope, but they were lucky in that they had diversions to take their mind of their work unlike to sonderkommando.