The Last Consolation Vanished

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This unique first-person Holocaust account is by Zalmen Gradowski, a member of the Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz, tasked with ushering prisoners to their deaths and disposing of their bodies. Forcibly recruited by the SS, many Sonderkommandos, upon realizing the horror of their duties, chose suicide or sought to be killed. Despite the despair, some resisted through uprisings and testimonies. Gradowski was involved in the rebellion on October 7, 1944, which was ultimately crushed, leading to his murder. However, his testimony endures, hidden in a metal bottle near Crematorium III. His writings vividly capture the brutality of the Nazi regime, the systematic extermination of Czech Jews, and the dynamics among those forced into complicity. Unlike typical narratives, Gradowski's accounts are lyrical and moving, crafted amidst unimaginable horrors to create true literature. Written in Yiddish, his full works have only recently appeared in French translation. This exceptional text, with a preface and postface by Philippe Mesnard and Arnold I. Davidson, will significantly contribute to Holocaust scholarship and the ongoing remembrance of the Shoah for years to come.