Inside the Gas Chambers

Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz

By: Shlomo Venezia

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a 'Sonderkommando', without realizing what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the 'special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies.

Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, 'Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944.

It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale—but, as a member of a 'Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story.

©2009 Polity Press (P)2022 Tantor

Vivid

The things humans are capable of doing is astounding. This man is brave to tell his story in such detail. How could this happen? The story must be told so it never happens again.

Grim details of the horrific life in the camps

The storyline and narration was very engaging but many times during the story the narrator stopped and said “note then further explained something”. That was quite annoying. Should have just incorporated the details in the story

History of the Ovens

Detailed information about how the Natzi's planed the anialation of any people who stood in their way of building the Third Reich. What a detailed plan of physically, psychologically and cold heartedly destroying and committing chaos in the world during World War II. Mostly Jews of Eastern Europe were slaughtered by hate and the bigotry of those in power of Germany. Generations of humans paid the price of one finaticle man who was land grabbing and drunk with power. It took thousands of lives to topple Hitler and his followers and bring Germany down.

Excellent book

This book is actually a Q&A with a survivor of the concentration camps, and it's one of the better books I've read on the subject. Everything in it seems completely believable, the claims don't sound exaggerated or embellished, which is a real problem with some books in this segment. I've probably read close to 50 books from Holocaust survivors at this point, and this is absolutely in the top tier of those books.

Although it's a Q&A format, the questioner stays out of the way of things, ands because of that it reads more like a narrative history, which is great.

Overall this is a very good book, it's easy for anyone to pick-up and read (so long as they can handle the subject) regardless of their familiarity with the holocaust, and it's never boring or dry.

The reader also does a very good job, sounds engaged but also doesn't veer into overacting, which can distract from books with this subject matter.

Amazing listen

Such a powerful book detailing all aspects of the gas chambers.
Honestly I struggled to listen to it at times, as it’s very descriptive, but amazing book nevertheless.