Daniel Bennahmias
Daniel Bennahmias (1923 – 22 October 1994) was a Greek-born Jewish Italian national captured by the Nazis in Greece during World War II and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He was used by the camp guards in a "sonderkommando" (German: 'special (command) unit' or 'task force'), a euphemism for a group forced to dispose of the corpses of fellow prisoners under the threat of execution. He was one of eleven Greeks in sonderkommandos who survived the holocaust. Biography. He was born in Thessaloniki to Italian parents Harriet and Mark Bennahmias. His father worked at the bureau of  information. Placement in a "sonderkommando". At the camp, he was quarantined for a month. He was selected to join the "sonderkommando" in 'block 13' and was told he would be cremating the dead. A Frenchman then filled him in on the truth of what was happening but he initially considered him as crazy. His job was in the operation for crematorium No.2, disentangling corpses from the gas chamber, but kept passing out. A Polish foreman named 'Koczak' slapped him to rouse him, explaining he'd be killed otherwise. He was saved when the foreman returned him to the block, where  he cleaned for a week before going back to the same job, separating the bodies using a belt and the crook of a walking cane, which for a full gas chamber took about eight hours. The subsequent job for others was to cut off the hair and remove gold from teeth before the bodies were placed in a lift to be raised one level to the oven. The gas chamber would then need to be hosed clean and whitewashed so the next group might believe it was a shower. A revolt was organised with a plan to blow up the  crematoria, in which Bennahmias and the Greek Dario Gabbai – convinced they were to be killed anyway – were given the task of disarming their Nazi guard, but the revolt was postponed before eventually being started in error, at a time when there many more Nazi guards present. Hundreds in the "sonderkommando" were then shot, with hundreds more taken to Mauthausen concentration camp for execution. He was reassigned to a job using a bone-crushing machine. By then, Bennahmias had witnessed a baby being shot, children thrown over the heads of adults to fit them into the gas chamber and he was  used to eating his lunch with the cadavers. If there were too few people to make gassing worthwhile, Nazi soldiers simply shot them in front of the ovens. By October, no more people were brought to the crematorium. He and other remaining members of the "sonderkommando" were ordered to dismantle the crematoria buildings. Closure of Auschwitz-II and return to Greece. On 18 January 1945, with the eastern front very near, they were marched eight kilometres in the snow – verbally abused by some local people – to Auschwitz-III from where they were taken through Czechoslovakia by lorry and train. The  Czechs threw salamis and other food to them as they passed. There was a further march to Ebensee, a satellite camp of Mauthausen. He was put to work in an underground weapons factory, where he collapsed due to an infected foot from the march. He spent a week in hospital after being operated on, before being sent back to the weapons factory. The infection set in again and a further period in the hospital coincided with the arrival American Army and his reunion with Gabbai. After receiving identity cards from the Americans on 26 May 1943, the pair travelled by  train through Italy where they were treated kindly. They arrived by cargo plane in Athens on 2 July, aged 22. He sought out his friend, Dr. Benveniste, and assisted him at a community hospital before employment feeding and clothing displaced people at the Joint Distribution committee, where he met also met his future wife. He worked as a correspondent for over two years. He married in 1951. Emigration to the USA. His wife, who was studying in Milwaukee, eventually persuaded him to go to the USA, where they settled. They had two children. He gained a BSc in chemistry from  the University of California, Berkeley. His wife died of cancer when she was 42. Bennahmias worked as a chemist for 23 years before becoming a merchant. He died on 22 October 1994.