Testimonies of Resistance

Download or read book Testimonies of Resistance written by Nicholas Chare and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.