The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando

By Rebecca Fromer

Book Overview

A poignant reminder of the ways enslaved Jews and others were forced to destroy their families and fellow prisoners In The Holocaust Odyssey , Rebecca Fromer leads us through the experiences of Danny Bennahmias, a Greek Jew of Italian citizenship whose forced labor as a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz included the disentangling of hundreds of thousands of gassed men, women, and children. The book is the result of a diligent collaboration. As it unfolds, it becomes a poignant reminder of the manner in which enslaved Jews and others were forced to destroy their families and fellow prisoners. It is a story of human decency, the spark of which remains against all odds.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081730598X
• ISBN13: 9780817305987
• Release Date: April 1993
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

The depth of depravity

This Holocaust survivor account is unlike any other in that it chronicles the fate of the Greek Jews in detail. Daniel's narrative is orderly and factual, bringing forth important items of history I have not seen in other studies. The description of the deadly cattle car ride to Auschwitz is broken out in great detail, to the degree that Daniel and the author place the reader in the midst of the un-imaginable dehumanizing experiences told there. The day-to-day tasks of the Sonderkommando are told in a slightly different light than one would read in Filip Mueller's "Eyewitness-Auschwitz", yet they are instructional from Daniel's point of view. His life was saved in some of the deadliest circumstances in what I believe was Divine intervention. One part of the book I especially enjoyed from a historical aspect was the fate of the ss officer Otto Moll, who I read of in other Holocaust literature (several survivors write extensively on this person-no morbid fascination with him, however). There is one account in the book that is a black cloud over an otherwise fine work, and that is the treatment the Greek Sephardic Jews were given by the European Ashkenazic Jews---the Greek Jewish people were looked down upon and reviled as "whores" and "cholera" by their fellow inmates. I highly recommend this work to any serious student of history, and I wish that I could meet Daniel Bennahmias someday. God bless you, sir!