Arguably, one of the worst places for prisoners to work during the Holocaust was the Sonderkommando—the group of prisoners forced to work in and around the gas chambers, disposing of corpses.
Yet they also managed to create a number of texts that survived the Holocaust even if they did not. In this episode, I talk with Dominic Williams about the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, its place in the Holocaust, and the documents it left behind.
Dominic Williams is an assistant professor of history at Northumbria University.
Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. The Auschwitz Sonderkommando: Testimonies, Histories, Representations(2019)
Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. Testimonies of Resistance: Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando (2019)
Williams, Dominic and Nicholas, Chare. Matters of Testimony: Interpreting the Scrolls of Auschwitz(2015)
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You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.