Henryk Mandelbaum

Henryk Mandelbaum

Henryk Mandelbaum was born on December 15, 1922 in Olkusz, Poland.

He was the Oldest of 4 Children born to a born Jewish Family.

In September 1939 the Germans invaded and occupied Henryk’s Town.

In 1941 he was forced into the Dąbrowa Górnicza Ghetto where he was made to be a Forced Laborer as a Bricklayer for a German Company.

At the end of 1942 he was moved to the Sosnowitz Ghetto.

Henryk was able to escape from the Sosnowitz Ghetto and lived in hiding until March 1944 when a Volksdeusche (an Ethnic German living outside of Germany) denounced him to the Gestapo as a Jew.

On April 22, 1944 he arrived at the Auschwitz Death Camp and received the Tattoo Number: 181970.

The Germans forced him to be part of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz.

The Sonderkommando were Prisoners, mostly Jews, who lived and worked at the Gas Chamber and Crematoria.

They met the Cattle Cars upon Arrival helping the Women, Children, the Elderly and the Disabled off the Trains.

They then helped those that the Germans had selected to be immediately killed to undress right before the Victims went into the Gas Chamber.

The Germans then poured Zyklon B Gas into the Chamber killing all the Men, Women and Children within 20 minutes.

Once everyone was dead the Sonderkommando had to remove the bodies and clean the Gas Chamber.

They also had to cut the hair of the dead Women (to be used in making blankets for German U-Boats) and take out gold teeth (to be melted down and sent to Switzerland to help finance Germany’s War.)

Many Sonderkommando saw their Family Members and Friends either entering the Gas Chamber alive or being burned in the Crematoria.

Henryk himself witnessed the murder of 400,000 Jewish Men, Women and Children from Hungary in his time in the Sonderkommando.

His Parents were also one of the 1.1 Million Men, Women and Children murdered at Auschwitz although it is not known if Henryk saw their murder himself.

There were a total of 2,000 Sonderkommando Members at Auschwitz alone and only 60 survived the War.

The Germans regularly murdered the Sonderkommando every 6 months or so and replaced them with new Forced Laborers.

On October 7, 1944 Henryk joined in the Sonderkommando Revolt at Auschwitz.

Three SS were killed and 12 more were wounded during the Revolt.

The Germans suppressed the Revolt and killed 451 Sonderkommando.

Henryk survived the Revolt.

The Gas Chambers were blown up by the Germans (to hide their crimes at the end of 1944.)

As the Soviets were getting close to Auschwitz the whole Death Camp was evacuated in January 1945.

In the chaos inside Auschwitz at the time the Sonderkommando managed to escape into the regular Camp and hide themselves among the regular Prisoners (escaping certain murder by the Germans who wanted to hide their crimes.)

Henryk went on the Death March where anyone who stopped for a second was killed by the Germans and left on the side of the road.

During the Death March Henryk was able to escape and hid out on a farm for 3 weeks before the area was liberated by the Soviets.

After the War he continued to live in Poland.

He gave evidence of the Gas Chambers and the Murder Process at Auschwitz to the Truth Finding Commission of the Soviet Union.

He gave testimony in the Trial against Rudolf Höss (the Commandant of Auschwitz from May 1940-November 1943 and again from May 1944- January 1945) in which Höss was found guilty and executed in Poland in 1947.

He also testified at the Trial of Former Members of the Auschwitz Camp’s Staff.

For 16 years Henry was the Head of a Branch of a Trading Company in Poland.

In 1971 he gave his Testimony to the Auschwitz State Museum.

In his later years (after the Collapse of Communism in Poland) he was a Taxi Driver.

He also went throughout Poland and Germany speaking about the Holocaust.

During a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to Auschwitz on May 28, 2006, Henryk stood in a row of Former Prisoners and was the only one to kiss the Pope on both cheeks.

Henryk Mandelbaum died on June 17, 2008 in Bytom, Poland following heart surgery.

He was 85 years old.