Hourban - Sonderkommando, Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the days following the Red Army’s entry into the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration complex on 27th January 1945, buried under the ashes around the crematoriums were discovered several manuscripts hidden in makeshift containers. The manuscripts of Zalmen Gradowski, Leib Langfus and Zalmen Lewental were written in Yiddish. Their authors were Sonderkommandos. These « special teams » of prisoners were in charge of operating the crematoriums and subsidiary installations in the death industry conceived by the Nazis: undressing rooms, gas chambers, furnaces and incineration ditches.