Zalman Gradowski

Zalman Gradowski or Chaim Zalman Gradowski (1910 – 7 October 1944) originally from Suwałki,[1] was a Polish Jewish prisoner of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. He arrived in November 1942 aboard a Holocaust train from Kalabosin (see: Kiełbasin Sammellager servicing Grodno Ghetto,[2] possible spelling error). After "selection" his family members perished. He was sent to work in the Sonderkommando slave labour unit.[3]

Zalman Gradowski and his wife Sonia on their wedding day, ca. 1935

Secret diary

In order to bear witness for future generations, Gradowski wrote a secret diary, describing his life and the camp. He buried his notebook in the camp as a time capsule. In it, Gradowski gave a detailed description of the extermination process in Birkenau. He was one of the key figures in the Sonderkommando underground at Auschwitz, where he was murdered during the revolt of 7 October 1944.[3][4][5]

A quotation from the diary is used as an epigram for the 2015 book KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps: "May the world at least behold a drop, a fraction of this tragic world in which we lived."[6]

Notes
  1. Shulamit Lifshitz (2015). "Chaim Zalman Gradowski from Suwalki, Poland, born in 1910 to Shmuel and Sara". The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names. Yad Vashem. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  2. POLIN (2015). "Kiełbasin, ul. O. Solomowoj - były nazistowski obóz tranzytowy". Kiełbasin transit camp. Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  3. Yisrael Gutman, Michael Berenbaum (1998). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Indiana University Press. pp. 522–529. ISBN 025320884X. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  4. Michael Berenbaum. "Weeping Without Tears" (PDF file, direct download). Source: Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. 29, Jerusalem, 2001, pp. 433-446. Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. p. 3. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  5. Adamczyk, Kazimierz (11 May 2017). "Report and lament – Zalman Gradowski's notes from Auschwitz". Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica. 46 (8). doi:10.18778/1505-9057.46.09. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
  6. Laqueur, Thomas (23 September 2015). "Devoted to Terror". London Review of Books. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
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