Henryk Mandelbaum
Encyclopedia
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
KL Auschwitz-Birkenau in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory
Crematory
A crematory is a machine in which cremation takes place. Crematories are usually found in funeral homes, cemeteries, or in stand-alone facilities. A facility which houses the actual cremator units is referred to as a crematorium.-History:Prior to the Industrial Revolution, any cremation which took...
. Only 110 out of 2,000 prisoners survived the Sonderkommandos in Auschwitz-Birkenau, of whom only a few are still alive. Mandelbaum committed himself to remembering the Holocaust.
Biography
Henryk Mandelbaum was imprisoned as a Polish Jew at the age of 21 years. He fled from the Sosnowiec GhettoSosnowiec Ghetto
Sosnowiec Ghetto or Sosnowitz Ghetto was a ghetto established for Jews by Nazi German authorities in the Province of Upper Silesia in occupied Poland during the Holocaust.-History:...
and was reimprisoned on April 22, 1944, in Birkenau.
Unlike most of the other prisoners, Mandelbaum was not murdered immediately after arrival because he was designated to forced labour in the crematory. He had to carry the corpses of the people who were gassed with Zyklon B
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...
, check body orifices for valuables and break out dental gold. In 1944 the capacity of the crematoriums was too small to burn all the corpses of prisoners killed. Mandelbaum and others had to dig two huge pits, then burn the dead bodies in them. To improve the process they had to pour back the body fat, which was collected in small holes in the pit, over the top of the pile.
Mandelbaum participated in the rebellion of inmates on October 7, 1944, which was put down quickly by the SS. Afterwards, 451 of the inmates were shot or hanged. This was the third rebellion in a camp after Treblinka (August 2, 1943) and Sobibor
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
(October 14, 1943).
On a death march
Death marches (Holocaust)
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
in January 1945 he was able to flee. He escaped wearing civilian clothes and hid on a farm for three weeks. After the liberation of Auschwitz he identified himself to the Wahrheitsfindungskommission (fact-finding commission) as an eyewitness.
Mandelbaum continued to live in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
until his death and still carried the number 181 970 on his left forearm. He often travelled to the former Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz and to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to speak about his experiences. Mandelbaum said that young people especially should learn what happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945: "Man muss das doch alles wissen, man muss doch wissen, wie lange sind die Leute gewesen in die Gaskammer. Man muss wissen, wie lange sie haben gebrennt in die Ofen" ("One has to know it all, has to know, how long the people have been in the gas chamber. One has to know how long they have burned in the ovens"). He sat as chair of the Auschwitz Museum directors and was keenly involved in publicising Auschwitz.
He died on June 17, 2008 in the Polish city of Bytom following heart surgery.
Films
Eric Friedler: Sklaven der Gaskammer - Das Jüdische Sonderkommando in Auschwitz, 2000, 44 minThis article is based on a translation of the German Wikipedia article Henryk Mandelbaum.