• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

At first I did not understand how, from a judicial or moral point of view, the Sonderkommando could bring themselves to pocket the gold. But a few days later, once I had a better grasp of the situation, I was inclined to agree that it was indeed the Sonderkommando who should—if anybody should—be considered the sole heirs and legal proprietors of the treasures which fortune had brought their way.

The men of the Sonderkommando also turned their gold over to be smelted. Despite the strictest supervision there were always ways of getting it to the goldsmiths and of later retrieving it in the form of 140 gram “coins.” But putting this gold to work, that is, exchanging it for useful goods, was a more difficult job. No one dreamed of hoarding his gold, for he knew that in four months’ time he would be dead. But for us four months was a very long time. To be condemned to death and yet forced to perform jobs such as we had to perform day after day was enough to break the body and soul of the strongest among us, and to drive many to the brink of insanity. It was thus necessary to make life easier, more bearable, even for a few weeks’ time. With gold you could do that, even in the crematoriums.

Thus was born, in the days of the first Sonderkommando, a unit of exchange: the 140 gram gold cylinder. This same unit was still being used by the twelfth Sonderkommando. The goldsmiths did not have any crucible of a smaller diameter, so there was no way for them to make a smaller “coin.”

In the crematoriums an object had no “value” in the ordinary sense of the term. Anyone who paid for something with gold had already paid with his life the day he entered here. But the person who gave something in exchange for gold doubly risked his neck, once when he brought the articles that were hard to come by, even on the outside, through the SS barricades and check points, and again on his return trip carrying the gold he had received in payment. For both coming in and leaving one was always searched.

On its way out the gold was carried in a Sonderkommando man’s pocket as far as the crematorium gate. There it changed hands. The man carrying the gold approached the SS guard on duty and exchanged a few words with him. The latter turned and sauntered away from the gate. On the section of railway track that passed in front of the “Krema” a team of from 20 to 25 Poles was working. At a sign from the Sonderkommando man, their work boss arrived with a folded sack and took the gold, which was wrapped in paper. So the sack containing the desired articles was safely inside the crematorium.

The Sonderkommando man entered the guardhouse, which was near the gate. He took about a hundred cigarettes and a bottle of brandy from the sack. The SS trooper entered and quickly pocketed both the bottle and cigarettes. He was of course extremely pleased, for the SS received only two cigarettes a day and no alcohol at all. And yet both were indispensable here. The SS guards drank and smoked heavily; so did the Sonderkommando.

Other necessary items, such as butter, eggs, ham and onions, were smuggled in by this same method. Nothing of this sort arrived with the deportees. Since the gold was procured through a collective effort, the distribution of the merchandise received in exchange was made on this same basis. Thus both the crematorium personnel and the SS non-coms received an ample supply of food, liquor and cigarettes. Everyone shut his eyes to this traffic, for it was to everyone’s advantage that it continue. Taken individually, any SS guard in the crematorium could be bought. They distrusted only themselves, knowing that the Sonderkommando had never betrayed anyone and never would. That was why the food, liquor and cigarettes were turned over to one SS guard by one “confidence man” from the kommando.

By this same underground route the official organ of the Third Reich, the Völkischer Beobachter was brought every day to the crematorium by a different railroad worker. A monthly subscription cost one 140 gram gold cylinder.