Chapter 4

  • footnote 7. The first ramp was located next to the Auschwitz I main camp and was used throughout the camp’s existence. The second ramp the SS used for deportations, the so-called “Alte Judenrampe,” went into operation in 1942. It was located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau. The “Alte Judenrampe” was in operation until the new ramp inside Birkenau was put into use in May of 1944. From then on, the victims no longer walked to the gas chambers and crematoria from outside the camp, but were transported almost directly to the site of their murder.
  • footnote 8. “Central Sauna” was Birkenau’s main disinfection facility, where those admitted to the camp were “processed” (i.e., where the SS made prisoner Kommandos shave their hair, issue them camp clothing, and register and tattoo them).
  • footnote 9. The “Effektenlager,” called “Kanada” by prisoners, were warehouses used to store the belongings of the deported. The name alluded to the wealth and riches the prisoners associated with Canada and the goods accessible to the prisoner Kommandos working in these facilities. The term was later adopted by the camp SS as well. The first Kanada warehouse was located in the area surrounding the Auschwitz I main camp; in December of 1943, the SS expanded the number of warehouses to include 30 wooden barracks in Auschwitz II Birkenau.
  • footnote 15. Members of the Sonderkommando hid the notes they had written in glass bottles, jars, and metal cans. These notes, preserved in their containers, were found on different occasions in the years 1945-1962 during excavation and cleaning work at the former crematoria. In 1980, while planting poplar seedlings near the ruins of Crematorium III, Lesław Dyrcz, a student of the Forestry Technical School in Brynek, found Marcel Nadjari’s manuscript hidden in a glass thermos flask inside a leather briefcase. It was buried about 40 cm deep. This is the last text written by a Sonderkommando prisoner to be found. Notes by Załmen Gradowski, Lejb Langfus, Załmen Lewental and Chaim Herman were first published by the Museum in 1971 under the title Rękopisy członków Sonderkommando (Manuscripts of Sonderkommando Members). In 1973, an English edition came out, entitled Amidst a Nightmare of Crime. The 1996 German edition, Inmitten des Grauenvollen Verbrechens, also included excerpts from Marcel Nadjari’s manuscript. The texts by Gradowski and Nadjari were re-read, re-translated and published in their entirety in 2017 and 2020 (From the Heart of Hell. Manuscripts of a Sonderkommando Prisoner, Found in Auschwitz and a bi-lingual edition entitled Marcel Nadjari’s Notes on November 3, 1944).