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Sonderbehandlung. Meine Jahre in den Gaskammern und Krematorien von Auschwitz
Wer, wie Filip Müller (1922 - 2013), KZ und Zwangsdienst im Sonderkommando Auschwitz-Birkenau über gur drei Jahre er- und überlebt hat, gehört zu den wichtigsten Zeugen des Grauens des Holocaust - und ist für sein Leben gezeichnet.
1979/80 veröffentlichte er auf Deutsch seinen Zeugen-Bericht „Sonderbehandlung“: Erschütternd, schonungslos und mit geradezu literarischer Wucht erzählt er von seiner Lagerzeit, beschreibt Täter und Opfer und gibt den Blick frei ins Herz der Finsternis. Es handelt sich dabei um die erste authentische Gesamtdarstellung der Geschichte des Sonderkommandos. Wer Müller, als einzigen Zeugen des Sonderkommandos, in Claude Lanzmanns Film „Shoah“ gesehen hat, vergisst sein Gesicht, seine Stimme nicht.
Nach der Veröffentlichung 1980 gab es massive Bedrohungen durch Alt- und Neo-Nazis, so dass Müller nie einer deutschen Neuausgabe zustimmt. Zum 100. Geburtstag 2022 nun macht seine Familie eine kommentierte Neuausgabe möglich.
1979/80 veröffentlichte er auf Deutsch seinen Zeugen-Bericht „Sonderbehandlung“: Erschütternd, schonungslos und mit geradezu literarischer Wucht erzählt er von seiner Lagerzeit, beschreibt Täter und Opfer und gibt den Blick frei ins Herz der Finsternis. Es handelt sich dabei um die erste authentische Gesamtdarstellung der Geschichte des Sonderkommandos. Wer Müller, als einzigen Zeugen des Sonderkommandos, in Claude Lanzmanns Film „Shoah“ gesehen hat, vergisst sein Gesicht, seine Stimme nicht.
Nach der Veröffentlichung 1980 gab es massive Bedrohungen durch Alt- und Neo-Nazis, so dass Müller nie einer deutschen Neuausgabe zustimmt. Zum 100. Geburtstag 2022 nun macht seine Familie eine kommentierte Neuausgabe möglich.
- GenresHistory
320 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2022
1 person is currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Filip Müller
5 books8 followersFilip Müller (born 1922, Sered, Czechoslovakia) was one of very few Sonderkommandos to have survived Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German extermination camp. He witnessed the exterminations and gassings of millions of Jews and lived to write one of the key documents of the Holocaust. Published in 1979, Müller's Eyewitness Auschwitz - Three Years in the Gas Chambers was his first-hand account of the events behind the walls in the Auschwitz camps.
He was brought up into a country with increasing Nazi propaganda, where it was not long until tens of thousands of Jews were deported out of Czechoslovakia into the Auschwitz camps in Poland. In April 1942, Filip Müller, who was only twenty years old, came with one of the earliest transports to Auschwitz and was given "Prisoner Number 29236". Assigned to work in the construction of crematoriums and installation of gas chambers, Müller witnessed "the families, the townships and the cities of Jewish people come", and was ordered burn the dead bodies in crematories. His extraordinary situation of cremating corpses was the only reason the Nazis kept him alive. Müller and other workers had no choice but to do what they were told, as there was no choice since the Nazis would never let them free to reveal the secrets of their mass gassings and cremations.
The arrivals of innocent men, women and children who entered Auschwitz each day was something that Müller could not have avoided, and yet he continued to pretend to them that they were somewhere safe as he led them to the gas chambers. His role after the mass gassings was to enter the chambers with other workers and strip bodies of their clothes. These clothes were then disinfected and any valuables found in them were given to SS officials.
After realizing what he was doing to the thousands of Jews each and every day for nearly three years, Müller admitted in his book that he did try to commit suicide by trying to enter the gas chambers himself. In his book, he recounted a story of how he saw a group of countrymen singing the Hatikvah and the Czech national anthem before they entered the gas chamber. He decided to join the group but before he entered the gas chamber, a woman said to him: "So you want to die? But that's senseless. Your death won't give us back our lives. That's no way. You must get out of here alive, you must bear witness to our suffering and to the injustice done to us." Despite the horrific actions that he had no alternative but to participate in, Müller realized that he had to stay alive because he and other workers were the only survivors that had to live and tell the real story behind the Holocaust.
Until January 1945, Müller worked as a prisoner in the Sonderkommando and was liberated in May 1945. Since 1969, Müller has lived in Western Europe.
Müller lived to testify at the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt in 1964, and his testimony was published as one chapter of The Death Factory, a Holocaust documentation in 1966.
He was brought up into a country with increasing Nazi propaganda, where it was not long until tens of thousands of Jews were deported out of Czechoslovakia into the Auschwitz camps in Poland. In April 1942, Filip Müller, who was only twenty years old, came with one of the earliest transports to Auschwitz and was given "Prisoner Number 29236". Assigned to work in the construction of crematoriums and installation of gas chambers, Müller witnessed "the families, the townships and the cities of Jewish people come", and was ordered burn the dead bodies in crematories. His extraordinary situation of cremating corpses was the only reason the Nazis kept him alive. Müller and other workers had no choice but to do what they were told, as there was no choice since the Nazis would never let them free to reveal the secrets of their mass gassings and cremations.
The arrivals of innocent men, women and children who entered Auschwitz each day was something that Müller could not have avoided, and yet he continued to pretend to them that they were somewhere safe as he led them to the gas chambers. His role after the mass gassings was to enter the chambers with other workers and strip bodies of their clothes. These clothes were then disinfected and any valuables found in them were given to SS officials.
After realizing what he was doing to the thousands of Jews each and every day for nearly three years, Müller admitted in his book that he did try to commit suicide by trying to enter the gas chambers himself. In his book, he recounted a story of how he saw a group of countrymen singing the Hatikvah and the Czech national anthem before they entered the gas chamber. He decided to join the group but before he entered the gas chamber, a woman said to him: "So you want to die? But that's senseless. Your death won't give us back our lives. That's no way. You must get out of here alive, you must bear witness to our suffering and to the injustice done to us." Despite the horrific actions that he had no alternative but to participate in, Müller realized that he had to stay alive because he and other workers were the only survivors that had to live and tell the real story behind the Holocaust.
Until January 1945, Müller worked as a prisoner in the Sonderkommando and was liberated in May 1945. Since 1969, Müller has lived in Western Europe.
Müller lived to testify at the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt in 1964, and his testimony was published as one chapter of The Death Factory, a Holocaust documentation in 1966.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 27, 2023
Ein Buch, das durch seine nüchtern und sachliche Erzählweise die Schrecken der Welt von Auschwitz schildert. Filip Müller wird zu einem der bedeutsamsten Zeugen im Frankfurter Auschwitzprozess. Nach Lesen seines Buches versteht man weshalb
July 23, 2022
Mit "Sonderbehandlung" erscheint Filip Müllers einmaliger Zeugenbericht über die Hölle von Auschwitz in einer überarbeiteten Neuausgabe, die alle Hoffnungen bei weitem erfüllt. Kernstück bleibt natürlich die Darstellung der Erlebnisse des Zeugen im "Sonderkommando". Über eine Spanne von fast drei Jahren erlebte er die Entwicklung der Vernichtungsmaschinerie: Die ersten systematischen Tötungen von Häftlingen durch Giftgas im Krematorium des Stammlagers, der Betrieb des Fließbands des Todes in den Birkenauer Krematorien bis zum (treffend als Inferno bezeichneten) Untergang des ungarischen Judentums 1944. Dies alles schildert Müller in packender Ich-Perspektive und gleichzeitiger Sachlichkeit. Er versteht sich nicht als der Ankläger, sondern als der Zeuge. Als derjenige, der der Welt Zeugnis ablegen MUSS über die unvorstellbaren Gräuel des Vernichtungslagers. Ergänzt wird dieses Herzstück des Buches durch ein Vorwort der Dr. Schuster und Klein, durch eine Einschätzung des Werkes und seiner Bedeutung in der Welt nach 1945, ein Personenverzeichnis mit Kurzbiographien (Opfer und Täter) sowie ein Zusammenstellung ausdrucksstarker Bilder. "Sonderbehandlung" kann nur als wichtige Mahnung aus einer vergangenen Zeit angesehen werden. Eine Zeit, in der das unvorstellbare Wirklichkeit wurde und deren Rückkehr wir mit allen Mitteln verhindern müssen. Es ist für alle Leser zu empfehlen und sollte dringend in die Riege der Lehrmittel integriert werden!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews