Sonderkommando

prison unit

Also known as: Special Commando

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Last updated

July 15, 2026

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The term "Sonderkommando" refers to special units within Nazi Germany's SS organization. These units were primarily composed of Jewish prisoners forced to aid in the extermination process at concentration and death camps. Their grim duties included guiding victims to gas chambers, removing bodies, and disposing of them, often by burning.12

The Sonderkommando units were a horrific aspect of the Holocaust, designed to dehumanize both the victims and those forced to carry out these tasks. Members of the Sonderkommando were typically murdered after a period of service to eliminate witnesses to the atrocities. The SS, the broader organization to which these units belonged, was an elite corps of the Nazi Party responsible for implementing much of the regime's terror and violence.21

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Holocaust
Jewish resistance to the Nazis
…true at Auschwitz, where the Sonderkommando (“Special Commando”), the prisoner unit that worked in the vicinity of the gas chambers, destroyed a crematorium just as the killing was coming to an end in 1944.
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…true at Auschwitz, where the Sonderkommando (“Special Commando”), the prisoner unit that worked in the vicinity of the gas chambers, destroyed a crematorium just as the killing was coming to an end in 1944.
Read More