Inside the Gas Chambers

Archival Summary & Scope

Shlomo Venezia, a Jewish-Italian from Thessaloniki, Greece, presents a harrowing and unique eyewitness account of daily life within the Nazi extermination machine in his memoir. Deported to Auschwitz by the Germans, Venezia tragically lost his mother and sisters to the gas chambers upon arrival. Desperate for survival, he unknowingly joined the Sonderkommando, the "special unit" forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers and burn them. Venezia dispassionately details the grim daily tasks, the terror inspired by "Angel of Death" Otto Moll, and recounts prisoner escape attempts, including the October 1944 revolt. As one of the few Sonderkommando members to survive, Venezia provides an unparalleled, unfiltered look into the operational heart of the Holocaust, sharing a story he was never meant to tell. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.