Night study guide contains a biography of elie wiesel, literature. For those of you who have read wiesels night, this book is a way more interesting read because while wiesel was in the camp just trying to eke out an existence, shlomo was in the god damn sonderkommando, at the very heart of the death machine. One of his first jobs had been to put his own fathers body into the crematory oven. He also described the joy experienced by those who, like him, were chosen to live and assigned to living quarters. The photographs were taken by a prisoner in auschwitz iibirkenau. Though just a brief 116 pages, the book has received considerable acclaim, and the author won the nobel prize in 1986. The jewish men in the sonderkommando were forced to live isolated in the. The guards suffered 15 casualties of whom about 12 were injured and 3 were killed. Sonderkommando next to a bonecrushing machine sonderkommandos were special work groups made up of prisoners in the nazi concentration camps during world war ii. He wrote of his experiences in his 1979 book eyewitness auschwitz. A unique testimony, which i shall examine from a historical point of view, including from the point of view of his prior statements. He did so, however, because of his forced work assignment as a stoker in the auschwitz crematorium and then as a jackof alltrades in the birkenau extermination plant squad, the sonderkommando.
The scene that follows can only be described by dr. Sonderkommandos were work units made up of german nazi death camp prisoners. Night is a memoir by elie wiesel that was first published in 1960. Book summary in 1944, in the village of sighet, romania, twelveyearold elie wiesel spends much time and emotion on the talmud and on jewish mysticism. At auschwitzs block 17, he berates himself for being a spoiled child and rejecting his first plate of prison soup. In the exchange above, carol stulberg interviews morris venezia pictured left for the usc shoah foundation uscsf on october 27, 1996, in inglewood california. These are some of the only known photos that show what happened around the. Scholar lawrence langer argues that behavior in the camps cannot be viewed through the same lens we used to view normal human behavior since the rules of law and morality and the choices available for human decisions were not. Never shall i forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Chazan described the incredulity he encountered when he tried to tell his family what he went through. Auschwitz inmates notes from hell finally revealed bbc news.
He described how the germans had installed pipes to make the gas chamber look like a shower room. Night, by elie wiesel, is a work of holocaust literature with a decidedly autobiographical slant. At first i found the question and answer format of the text somewhat distancing as the book records the conversations he had with an interviewer in 2006. Eliezer elie wiesel an introspective teenager, elie first begins to hate when hungarian police strike out with billy clubs and force jews from their homes.
Maybe some thought it was a lesser evil helping others to go to death without agonizing fear if they cannot be saved. The sonderkommando attacked the ss and kapos with two machine guns, axes, knives and grenades. In this lesson, we will learn about an armed prisoner uprising at the auschwitz concentration camp in october 1944. The sonderkommandos were jewish prisoners chosen for their expertise or. The sonderkommandos were groups of jewish prisoners forced to perform a variety of duties in the gas chambers and crematoria of the nazi. Sonderkommando photographs simple english wikipedia, the. It was entitled nachtshicht nightshift in yiddish and played with great. Salmen lewental one of the sonderkommando leaders kept a written record in a small notebook which was buried in a jar under the earth, which was found after the war. As she walked to the gas chamber on 8th march 1944 she managed to hand in her notes to one of the sonderkommando prisoners. Summary read a plot overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter summary and analysis. Some of the sonderkommando escaped from the camp but most were recaptured later the same day. The nazi plan was to kill useless mouths instantly upon arrival at auschwitz and to. With the help of brave jewish women, hundreds of sonderkommando prisoners chose. Jews were killed in these makeshift gas chambers described in camp.
Son of saul brings viewers to the heart of the nazi. A young woman who comforts elie after hes been beaten by idek. He took two shots from inside one of the gas chambers and two outside. He described the searing experiences of the sonderkommandos, or special. This was auschwitzs extermination camp a place where people were sent to be killed in gas chambers. Not just because he was italian like me, but for the incredible courage it took him to write it, trying to describe the horrors of the holocaust and his personal experience of being dehumanized in auschwitz in such detail and detachment. The extermination camp created also one other group of people, those who were forced to work in the crematoria. He redeems himself by multiple acts of kindness, such as giving up his gold dental crown to spare his father torment for. Elie wiesel 1928 is a frenchamerican author, whose work addresses jewish themes, including the experiences of jews who suffered in nazi concentration camps during world war ii. Moral adaptation in primo levis survival in auschwitz. Inside the gas chambers a book is mans best companion. Born in 1900 in salonika greece, venezia speaks for more than an hour about his work as a sonderkommando prisoner in the crematoria and gas chambers at auschwitzbirkenau. The number of sonderkommando prisoners operating the day and night shifts, described. Never shall i forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and.
His instructor, moshe the beadle, returns from a neardeath experience and warns that nazi aggressors will soon threaten the serenity of their lives. As i anticipated, in 2007,venezia finally filled the void, entrusting his memoirs to a book. Remarkably, eliezers mother and sister are never mentioned again in night. The jewish men forced to help run auschwitz history.
Several sources identified him as alberto errera, a greek naval officer. It details the life of the author, shlomo venezia, who was born into a jewishitalian community in greece. This book is the collected memories of shlomo venezia of his time in the crematorium sonderkommando work unit at auschwitzbirkenau. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Because of his great strength, bela katz was forced to be a part of the sonderkommando, the jewish unit that worked in the crematories. He has the reputation of occasionally going crazy, but the unit hes in charge of is considered a good one to work in because the labor is light. As referenced in elie wiesels night, there were certain jewish prisoners who collaborated with the nazi soldiers in the concentration.
Quote from the poem of an anonymous jewish czech woman. Auschwitz inmates notes from hell finally revealed. They worked in and around the gas chambers, which the. The ordinary moral world 86 primo levi cites in survival in auschwitz, ceases to exist. White night, the czech transport and departure order determined by. The foreword of the book is written by simone veil, another survivor of auschwitz. The sonderkommando photographs are four blurry pictures, taken secretly in august 1944 inside the auschwitz concentration camp during world war ii. Real history and elie wiesel, a real hatemonger david irving. At auschwitz and birkenau, the sonderkommando were responsible for sorting the suitcases, packages and other items with which the prisoners arrived on the trains. After describing the fiery ditch and the truck full of children consumed in flames, wiesel writes. At auschwitz the sonderkommando working in the crematoria initially numbered 400 men, but the number was raised during the mass murder of hungarians in 1944 to about 1,000 men. It is described brilliantly and movingly by vassily grossman and by surviving polish inmate tadeusz borowski. After the war he described his camp experiences in poems and short stories. Once, when idek gets in one of his crazy moods, he beats eliezer for no reason.
Sonderkommandos special detachments was the name used to describe squads of inmates in the death camps who were used by their guards as work parties to clear the gas chambers and bury or burn. Wiesel based the book at least in parton his own experiences during world war ii. The first theatre play to describe the sonderkommando revolt was written in 1947. In this section wiesel continues to develop the symbolic meaning of the title night. The sonderkommando who wrote in auschwitzbirkenau despite the risks. Idek, a young man, is a character from elie wiesels wellknown holocaust work. Elie wiesel warned us in night about how human nature ignores warnings and. They were also authors of a number of memoirs published as books, and the. Origin and meaning of a term1 i have written as follows. Eight months in the sonderkommando of auschwitz is published in association with the united states holocaust memorial museum. Son of saul brings viewers to the heart of the nazi death machine at auschwitz son of saul, set in a nazi death camp in 1944, won the grand prix at this years cannes film festival. In elie wiesel s autobiographical depiction of life in the concentration camps, night, kapos play, as they should, a major role in the authors recollections of the brutality to which he and millions of other european jews were subjected.
While the corpses burned, the stokers stripped the waiting. Gradowski first described, in exceptionally moving language, the selection of sonderkommando prisoners by the ss on 24 february, as a result of which more than half of the members of the sonderkommando were deported from the camp and perished. If there is a book that change my life, this is it. The word sonderkommando means special unit in german, and from the start, the men tasked with helping the nazis lived lives that were. The title of this book is the ss sonderkommando dirlewanger and it was written by rolf michaelis editor. Eight months in the sonderkommando of auschwitz at. Usually named only as alex, a jewish prisoner from greece, the photographer was a member of the sonderkommando, inmates forced to work in and around the gas chambers. The worst of elies mistreatment comes after he laughs at this man for lying with a young polish girl. This paper is an analysis of elie wiesels memoir night as a piece of historical evidence regarding the events now described as the holocaust. Special units of the crematoria danuta czech explains the origin and meaning of the term sonderkommando special unit as follows. These items were taken to a storage area of the camp euphemistically called canada, where the clearing commando. Although they exerted power over other prisoners, sonderkommando members had no meaningful choices available to them.
The number of sonderkommando prisoners operating the day and night shifts, described in the document as heizer krematorium crematorium stokers, was 870. At least it was sonderkommando that oraganized the revolt in october 1944. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of night by elie wiesel. Shlomo venezias sonderkommando is a unique testimonial account of the horrors at the heart of the nazi extermination machine, described by a man who was not supposed to emerge alive from the hell on earth that was auschwitz. He won the nobel peace prize in 1986 for his work promoting human rights. Kapos carried a certain rank among their fellow prisoners. In chapter 3, elie and his father have just survived the selections upon arriving at birkenau. With reference to elie wiesels night, what is a pipel. The sonderkommando resistance leaders made contact with some jewish girls who worked in the munitions factory weichsel union metallwerke, which was located near the auschwitz main camp. In chapter 3, elie and his father have just survived the. They did not, perhaps chose not, to understand that it was blind fate that placed us in the sonderkommando, we had no control of our destiny in that hell hole whatsoever. The extermination camp created also one other group of people, those who were forced to work in the crematoria and gas chambers.
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