Testimonies of Resistance

The Sonderkommando the special squad of enslaved Jewish laborers who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau comprise one of the most fascinating and troubling topics within Holocaust history. As eyewitnesses to and unwilling abettors of the murder of their fellow Jews, they are the object of fierce condemnation even today. Yet it was a group of these seemingly compromised men who carried out the revolt of October 7, 1944, one of the most celebrated acts of Holocaust resistance. This interdisciplinary collection assembles careful investigations into how the Sonderkommando have been represented by themselves and by others both during and after the Holocaust.