Talk:Sonderkommando

message: The Jewish Sonderkommando in Sobibor neither lead the revolt nor did they take part in the outbreak on 14 October 1943. The organising secret committee had unsuccessfully tried to contact them in Camp III, the killing site. All the members of the Sonderkommando were shot on 15 October.
I think it will be OK to delete the reference to Sobibor. P. Witte 09:45, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Sobibor

message: I think it would be a decent illustration of the real human tragedy that the Nazis brought about in the camps. Laurence Rees book on Auschwitz may be a good read on someone looking to further their knowledge on the subject. Londo06 11:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should attention not be drawn to the fact Jews were involved

message: The revolt in Auschwitz is in Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. I'd say that's a source, since the other one has no citation. It has two pages of detailed writing about the events but it contradicts what is written here. -Babylon pride (talk) 16:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revolt 

message: I do not think it is correct to say that those selected for Sonderkommando duty accepted their roles even in part because the conditions in which they lived were better ("accepted it because it meant . . . vastly-better living conditions. They would sleep in their own barracks, which more than any other in the camp resembled normal human dwellings; various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes") than conditions elsewhere in Birkenau. Members of the Sonderkommando were selected because they appeared to be in decent health; otherwise, selection was arbitrary and forced. Those selected "accepted," it seems from their own testimony, simply because they had no choice in the matter. Had conditions in the barracks been worse, they would have accepted as well, again, because they had no real options other than to assume their horrific burden. In fact, their duties were the most ghastly in the camps. Even minor disobedience meant severe punishment, including torture and probably death, and, at Auschwitz, in the beginning floggings and beatings were administered as a matter of course. Good sources for the predicament of the men chosen for the Sonderkommando are Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz and Gideon Greif, We Wept Without Tears. VanDiemen (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there should be something in the article about the moral ambiguity of it all (currently there isn't). What, for example, did other inmates think of the members of the Sonderkommando? - 124.191.144.183 (talk) 10:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why members of the Sonderkommando "accepted" their selection 

message: Not so, according to Gideon Greif, see footnote 34, p. 357, discussion of seven documented liquidations of Sonderkommando members at Birkenau as well as seven smaller and undocumented liquidations. In most cases, the liquidation took place outside Birkenau or in an area of Birkenau located at some distance from where the Sonderkommando worked. Only in the case of the corpses of the several hundred workers murdered after the uprising of October 1944, it appears, did members of the Sonderkommando dispose of "predecessors' corpses," although, strictly speaking, the corpses were not of their predecessors but of fellow Sonderkommando. VanDiemen (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The first task of the new Sonderkommandos would be to dispose of their predecessors' corpses" 

message: I am a little confused—I always thought the term for people like this was Kapo(s), but that word is only used once on this page, and not defined at that. (I'll create a link to the Wikipedia Kapo page at the one usage.) Perhaps someone who could add the distinction (if there was one) between the two? Historian932 (talk) 02:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: that's not the point. Kapos worked in concentration camps and supervised inmates. Sonderkommandos worked in death camps where there were no inmates - new arrivals were killed in a matter of hours. That's the big difference. Some kapos were in fact Jews tasked with supervising Jewish inmates (the ones who did slave labor, not the ones being gassed). 03:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kapos vs. Sonderkommando? 

message: The picture of what is claimed to be a "bone crushing machine" seems to be the same machine depicted on the USHMM site here http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005279&MediaId=824
The damaged machine shown in the photos is a rotating screen, where gravel or crushed stone was separated according to grain size, a necessary condition for making high quality concrete. The steel sheet contraption on the top is a feeding funnel, into which the raw material was fed from a conveyor belt. Such a rotating screen could be combined with a stone crusher. In that case, the stone crusher would have been much bigger than the screen, and the feeding funnel would have been superfluous. That's why I think the machine was used for treating natural gravel, not for crushed stone. The guys standing next to the damaged machine are wearing civilian clothes and are more likely to be construction workers than members of a sondercommando.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthpremium (talk • contribs) 19:09, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Bone crushing machine''' 

message: The article says that the system of killing sonderkommandos after a few months fell into abeyance at Birkenau where some sonderkommandos managed to survive several years.  As fas as I can ascertain Birkenau was only operational for three years at most, so 'several' surely needs to be modified.  A source would be very helpful Lockstone (talk) 10:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of time as Sonderkommando 

message: : "Sonderkommando" is a term used for Sondereinsatzkommando/Spezialeinsatzkommando of the police/military in Germany (like the SEK):  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spezialeinsatzkommando , this article describes the Sondereinsatzkommando KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderkommando_KZ_Auschwitz-Birkenau 134.176.202.141 (talk) 02:18, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  incorrect use of term 

message: From Extermination camp article-
A prisoner Sonderkommando (Special Detachment) effected the most of the processes of extermination; they accompanied the Jews into the gas chamber, and remained with them until the chamber door closed. To psychologically maintain the “calming effect” of the delousing deception, an SS guard stood at the door, as if awaiting the prisoners. To deprive the prisoners of time to grasp the fateful facts of what truly was occurring, the Sonderkommando hurried them to undress and enter the (gas chamber) shower room as quickly as possible; to that effect, they also assisted the aged and the very young in undressing.[27]
To further persuade the prisoners that no harm was forthcoming, the Sonderkommando deceived them with small talk about camp life. Fearing that the delousing “disinfectant” might harm their children, many mothers hid their infants beneath their piled clothes. Camp Commandant Höss reported that the “men of the Special Detachment were particularly on the look-out for this”, and encouraged the women to take their children into the shower room. Likewise, the Sonderkommando comforted older children who might cry “because of the strangeness of being undressed in this fashion”.[28]
Are they talking about the SS officers or the extermination camp prisoners/workers?  The Sonderkommando hypertext in the extermination camp article links to this article.  If refering to the SS officers, then the link should be removed/changed and this needs to be clarified in the article.  If refering to the prisoners/workers, then why the hell is this important information missing from this article?!!  If it is, I had no idea that some holocaust prisoners helped perpetrate it against others (and just to buy some time)!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.252.125 (talk) 01:41, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing infomation or dual-meaning confusion? 

message: I know Magneto was listed here because, in the main X-Men storyline, he was forced into duty as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz. I just wonder where to draw the line. How does including a fictional comic book character, whose Holocaust experience motivated him to instigate genocide against a weaker populace than his, shed any light on this subject? And that's not to mention the fact that such a backstory is pathologically tasteless, if not revolting, ignorant, and offensive. SilverCity 02:44, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree.  No place for that here. -OberRanks (talk) 16:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  I removed [[Magneto (comics)|Magneto]] from the "See also" section 

message: The caption to Henryk Mandelbaum's photo on this page says:
"Henryk Mandelbaum and an interpreter talk on the ruins of crematoria at Auschwitz II. He was a member of the Auschwitz II Sonderkommandos at the time of the revolt by the Sonderkommandos. He told of how his unit, who did not revolt, were punished by having every third member of the group executed as a lesson."
On his page, it says "Mandelbaum participated in the rebellion of inmates on October 7, 1944, which was put down quickly by the SS.". To me this appears somewhat contradictory, can anyone clarify what actually happened? Was he the only member of his unit that participated? Did others from his unit participate? Did the whole unit participate? 46.208.134.72 (talk) 13:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Henryk Mandelbaum 

message: Why is a picture from a 1912 disaster in America captioned as Sonderkommando in Germany? I am very confused 71.169.181.208 (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dresden Ohio Train Wreck 

message: I have a problem with this section, as it seems to be of excessive length per WP:UNDUE, and due to original research especially in the first paragraph. I do believe that controversies sections are generally not favored. Coretheapple (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversies section

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I tried to edit this, but my edit was reversed. I don’t understand why my edit was reversed except for I am not an expert in Wikipedia formatting. I have a problem listing sonderkommando members who died as “survivors”. Leyb Langfus and Zalman Gradowski perished in the Shoah, they did not “survive” the sonderkommando. I realize that this is a debate of semantics, but words have accountability and meaning or at least they should. I feel that this heading should say “Members” or “notable members” to make the listing more accurately and encompassing. Truly, there wee some survivors, and this is not in dispute, but Zalman Gradowski and Leyb Langfus were not among them. 
Secondly, it must be noted that the term sonderkommando as it relates to concentration camp crematorium details was only used at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Jews who fulfilled the functions of the sonderkommando at other concentration camps, Treblinka for example, were not called sonderkommando. But this is a minor grievance. My main grievance is in the preceding paragraph. 
--NeilFraudstrong (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survivors heading in info box and other concerns.  

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
* 
Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: I check pages listed in :Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of :Sonderkommando's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Vanderwerff":
From Kurt Franz: 
From Sobibór extermination camp: Lest we forget (14 March 2004),  The Holocaust. Retrieved on 17 May 2013.
From Treblinka extermination camp: 
From Sobibór Museum: Lest we forget (14 March 2004), "Extermination camp Sobibor" The Holocaust. Retrieved on May 17, 2013.
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 10:11, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Orphaned references in [[:Sonderkommando]] 

message: I'm removing the section which says that sonderkommando prisoners participated in the Sobibor revolt. The current text cites only cite Schelvis 2007, who explicitly states that the sonderkommando didn't participate in the revolt: 
 "Lager 3 presented an incalculable risk. It was impossible to plan for the elimination of the SS staff there, in view of its complete isolation from the rest of the camp. If the SS were to realize that a revolt had broken out in the other parts of the camp, they were certain to hurry over to assist their colleagues and would resort to using their weapons. The organizers, very sadly, therefore had to concede that there was no way to save the Arbeitshäftlinge in Lager 3 as well." (Schelvis, 153) 
I think it would be worth developing the text about the Treblinka revolt to specify the role that was played by sonderkommando prisoners in particular. However, I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to do that well at present. Botterweg14 (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Sobibor revolt

message: Leib Langfus and Zalmen Gradowski are both Lister as survivors of the Sonderkommando's. But both werd murdered in the camp. The should be listed as persons who left testimonies on paper, not they survivors the campus, but there testimonies did. Hveene (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a recent source that confirms that four of the five authors of the Scrolls of Auschwitz did not survive, and I added that to the article.Roches (talk) 01:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survivors? 

message: Sonderkommandos along with Einsatzkommandos are subunits  Einsatzgruppens, special killing task forces of SS. This another meaning of Sondercommando must be dwelt on the article. To find more, please Google words "Sonderkommandos Einsatzkommandos difference" Slav70 (talk) 03:49, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another meaning of Sonderkommando 

message: Active and vocal during Russian ocupațional of Ukraine 37.144.247.186 (talk) 17:27, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  HAbad Congregatiin Moscow , RF 8.012022