Shlomo Venezia

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Shlomo Venezia ( Greek Σλόμο Βενέτσια , born December 29, 1923 in Thessaloniki , † October 1, 2012 in Rome ) was an Italian survivor of the special command of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . Of the 110 or so Jewish deportees who survived the work in the Sonderkommando, Venezia was the only Italian.

Life

Shlomo Venezia grew up in a family of Italian Jews in Greece. He was arrested together with his family in April 1944 in Thessaloniki and the Auschwitz-Birkenau deported , where they arrived after a twelve-day mission in sealed freight cars. During the selection by the concentration camp doctors , on the basis of which deportees considered fit to work were separated from those who were scheduled for immediate killing in the gas chamber , he managed to save himself from death with his brother and two cousins.

After the shave, shower and prisoners' clothing, Venezia was placed in a 40-day quarantine , which was intended to prevent the spread of epidemics and also contributed to the physical and psychological exhaustion of the prisoners. After twenty days of quarantine, Venezia was assigned to the Sonderkommando, whose task it was to prepare the murder of the deportees selected for the gas chamber, to plunder the victims and then to burn them. This Sonderkommando was also assigned to Alberto Errera , whose secret photographs of corpses burned are important evidence. Shlomo Venezia was an eyewitness to Errera's unsuccessful attempt to escape.

When the Auschwitz concentration camp was cleared in January 1945, Shlomo Venezia was among those prisoners who were driven on the death marches with stations in the Melk and Mauthausen concentration camps - until his liberation on May 6, 1945 in the Ebensee concentration camp .

It was only decades later that Shlomo Venezia began to speak publicly of his experiences as one of the few surviving Italian witnesses of the Holocaust . As a guest on numerous television programs and at schools, he aimed primarily at young people with his storytelling. He was also a consultant for Roberto Benigni's film Life is Beautiful .

Shlomo Venezia can be seen in Eric Friedler's film " Slaves of the Gas Chamber ". The film shows u. a. a meeting with his fellow sufferer Henryk Mandelbaum in Rome.

In October 2007 his memories of Auschwitz were published as a book under the title Sonderkommando Auschwitz (German title Meine Arbeit im Sonderkommando Auschwitz ).

Shlomo Venezia died in Rome on October 1, 2012 at the age of 88.

plant

  • Shlomo Venezia: Special command: dans l'enfer des chambres à gaz . Interview by Béatrice Prasquier. Preface by Simone Veil . Paris: Albin Michel, 2007
  • Shlomo Venezia; Marcello Pezzetti, Umberto Gentiloni Silveri: Auschwitz special command . Interview by Béatrice Prasquier. Translation of Maddalena Carli. Milan: Rizzoli, 2007. ISBN 88-17-01778-7 .
  • My work in the Auschwitz Sonderkommando: The first comprehensive testimony from a survivor. In collaboration with Béatrice Prasquier. Preface by Simone Veil . From the French by Dagmar Mallett. Blessing, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-89667-365-3 .

Movie

  • Eric Friedler: Slaves of the Gas Chamber - The Jewish Sonderkommando in Auschwitz , D 2000, 44 min (Editors: Barbara Siebert and Andreas Kilian; first broadcast on ARD on January 24, 2001, 11:30 p.m.)
  • Ruggero Gabbai: Memoria, ITA 1997, 84 min (script: Marcello Pezzetti and Liliana Picciotto Fargion)
  • Andrew Barron: Auschwitz- the final witness, GB 1999, 48 min (script and production: Peter Sharp)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Addio a Shlomo Venezia, sopravvissuto alla Shoah e testimone dei lager nazisti (German: Auf Wiedersehen, Shlomo Venezia, the Holocaust survivor and contemporary witness of National Socialist concentration camps), adnkronos.com of October 1, 2012 (Italian, accessed October 1, 2012 ).
  2. ↑ Gabriele von Arnim: At the place of horror . In: Die Zeit, July 31, 2008.
  3. ↑ Gabriele von Arnim: At the place of horror . In: Die Zeit, July 31, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Venezia, Shlomo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Thessaloniki
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 2012
Place of death Rome