Testimony of Yaakov Gabai, born in Athens, Greece, 1912, regarding his experiences as a forced laborer in the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau camp

Testimony of Yaakov Gabai, born in Athens, Greece, 1912, regarding his experiences as a forced laborer in the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau camp Deportation from Athens to Auschwitz camp along with another 2,500 deportees, 01/04/1944; transfer via Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria; arrival to Auschwitz, 11/04/1944; Auschwitz camp life, including selection; transfer to Birkenau B II A camp; Birkenau camp life in block no. 12; selection by a German physician; sent to labor in the Sonderkommando along with other male inmates, 12 May 1944; labor in the Sonderkommando in crematorium no. 2 following the murder of Jews from Hungary, 15 May 1944; murder of Jews from Greece and from Lodz, Poland, June 1944; detailed information regarding the process of the murder by gas, the distribution of the duties, and the handling of the corpses; description of the relationship between the Sonderkommando laborers and the Nazis; Gabai's wife was an inmate in the women's camp, and he saw her several times before her deportation to Bergen-Belsen camp, where she perished; information regarding his writing of a diary, but it was left behind during the liberation; information regarding his belief that he would survive, and his lack of fear; information regarding the murder of a group of 1,500 Hungarians in mid-July 1944, and the murder of 24 Red Army soldiers who were POWs from Majdanek, after their transfer to labor in the Sonderkommando, October 1944; inmates who turned into a Muselmann were burned in the crematorium; coping with the pain, following the murder of the families of the Sonderkommando laborers; recitation of Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, over the ashes of family members; outbreak of the Sonderkommando revolt, October 1944; evacuation of the camp, 18 January 1945; end of the war; His return to Greece; of his entire family, only one uncle survived; his aliya to Israel, May 1949.