Henryk Almond Tree

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Henryk Mandelbaum (left)

Henryk Mandelbaum (born December 15, 1922 in Olkusz , Poland , † June 17, 2008 in Bytom ) was a Holocaust survivor who belonged to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp that had been deployed in the crematoria . Of the 2000 prisoners of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau , only 110 survived. As a contemporary witness, he later reported on his experiences and thus achieved a broad response.

biography

Henryk Mandelbaum, a Polish Jew, was imprisoned at the age of 21. He had fled the Sosnowiec ghetto (Sosnowitz), was betrayed and was deported to Birkenau on April 22, 1944.

In contrast to the majority of the Jews from Sosnowiec who were brought in with him, Mandelbaum was not immediately murdered because he was supposed to be employed as a worker in the crematoria. There he was forced, among other things, to carry the corpses to the crematorium or the cremation pits, to examine the remains for valuables hidden in the body orifices, or to break out gold teeth. The Sonderkommando was Alberto Errera assigned to represent the recordings secretly made by cremations important evidence. Henryk Mandelbaum was an eyewitness to Errera's unsuccessful escape attempt and reported about it.

On October 7, 1944, he was involved in a revolt among the prisoners assigned there, which was suppressed. 451 of the prisoners were then hanged or shot. It was one of the few uprisings in a concentration camp .

On the death march in January 1945, Mandelbaum managed to escape. He escaped in plain clothes and was able to hide on a farm for three weeks. After Auschwitz was liberated , he reported to the Truth-Finding Commission as an eyewitness.

Almondbaum lived in Poland until his death in 2008. He never had the tattooed number 181 970 removed from his left forearm, with which the inmates had been identified. As a contemporary witness, Mandelbaum traveled to the former concentration camps and to Germany to report on his experiences there: “You have to know everything, you have to know how long have the people been in the gas chambers. You have to know how long they burned in the oven, ” says Mandelbaum.

literature

  • Eric Friedler , Barbara Siebert, Andreas Kilian: Witnesses from the death zone: the Jewish special command in Auschwitz. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-34158-0 .
  • Only the stars were like yesterday: Henryk Mandelbaum, prisoner in the Auschwitz special unit in 1944/1945; Exhibition catalog. Educational Institute Stanisław Hantz, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-00-018142-3 .
  • Only the stars were like yesterday: Exhibition about the former Sonderkommando prisoner Henryk Mandelbaum. From: analysis & criticism No. 506, May 19, 2006, ISSN  0945-1153 .
  • Jan Poludniak: Special. An interview with Sonderkommando member Henryk Mandelbaum. Frap-Books, Oswiecim 2008. ISBN 978-83-921567-3-4 .
  • Henryk Mandelbaum: Report by a contemporary witness . In: Bettina Schaefer (ed.): Let's talk about Auschwitz . Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 2009. ISBN 978-3-86099-391-0 . Pp. 45-60.
  • Igor Bartosik, Adam Willma: Me from the Auschwitz crematorium - conversation with Henryk Mandelbaum, former prisoner of the special detachment in KL Auschwitz. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim 2017. ISBN 978-83-7704-199-4 .
  • Piotr MA Cywinski: Henryk Mandelbaum: I from the Auschwitz Crematorium (2009). In: Markus Roth / Sascha Feuchert (ed.): Holocaust testimony literature. 20 works read again. Wallstein, Göttingen 2018. ISBN 978-3835332928 .

Movie

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Igor Bartosik et Adam Willma, Dans les crématoires d'Auschwitz - Entretien avec Henryk Mandelbaum, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the 2012th
personal data
SURNAME Almond Tree, Henryk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Olkusz , Poland
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 2008
Place of death Bytom