The Last Consolation Vanished: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz

Author: Zalmen Gradowski Editors: Arnold I. Davidson and Philippe Mesnard Translator: Rubye Monet On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than 400 prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner’s powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III. Zalmen Gradowski was a prisoner forced to work in a Sonderkommando (special squad) at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was a Jewish prisoner given the unthinkable task of ushering Jewish deportees into the gas chambers, removing their bodies, salvaging any valuables, transporting their corpses to the crematoria, and destroying all evidence of their murders. Members of the Sonderkommandos were chosen for this gruesome forced lab