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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: N. Chare and D. Williams, "Testimonies of Resistance: Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando" (Berghahn Books, 2019)
Description: The Sonderkommando--the "special squad" of enslaved Jewish laborers who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau--comprise one of the most fascinating and troubling topics within Holocaust history. As eyewitnesses to and unwilling abettors of the murder of their fellow Jews, they are the object of fierce condemnation even today. Yet it was a group of these seemingly compromised men who carried out the revolt of October 7, 1944, one of the most celebrated acts of Holocaust resistance. Testimonies of Resistance: Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando (Berghahn Books, 2019), edited by Nicholas Chare and Dominic Williams, assembles careful...