168:
helping those selected to get undressed, one of the
Sonderkommando members' duties was to maintain the pretence that they would merely be showered. Gabbai said that there were instances where the victims knew that something was suspicious about their fate, that "something funny was going on", but nothing could be done. In one instance, Gabbai recognized two of his friends from Thessaloniki, explained to them the reality of what was going to happen and told them where to stand in the gas chamber so that they would be killed as quickly as possible. Gabbai heard children and their mothers crying and scratching the walls of the gas chamber as they died. Once the killing was over, the ventilation system extracted the gas, and then the door would be opened. Gabbai says that:
240:. Gabbai's retirement life consisted of visiting the gym daily, which he described as therapeutic: "When I'm sweating, everything goes away...my problems are over." He has compared the "lingering pain of what happened at Auschwitz to a virus that lies dormant until something triggers it", and said that there were moments when his Sonderkommando cohorts would have preferred to die, but then reconsidered, knowing that if they survived they would be able to tell the world what they witnessed. He has been described as a survivor who "combines incredible strength with a vulnerability and fragility that become apparent when he bears witness."
179:
Sonderkommando members would have to drag the bodies out of the gas chamber to the lift with a hooked cane. Once gas chamber was empty, they would then wash it down with water hoses, as the floor and walls would be covered in blood and excrement. He would also have to turn the bodies in the oven portals to ensure they burned evenly and grind up the bones that would not disintegrate from cremation.
147:
outside
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they faced the selection process. Except for Gabbai himself, his brother, and two of his cousins (brothers Maurice and Shlomo Venezia), the entire family were selected for extermination and gassed that day. Gabbai watched his parents being loaded onto the trucks that
167:
Gabbai's duties included helping the men, women, and children selected for gassing to get undressed, moving their dead bodies out of the gas chamber onto an electric lift which would bring them up to the ground floor where the ovens were located, and loading the bodies into the oven portals. While
142:
to a Greek mother and an
Italian father and was educated in Italian schools in Greece. At the age of 21 or 22 years old, Gabbai and his entire family were detained by the Nazis on March 24, 1944, and on April 1 they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle wagons. Ten days later, this transport arrived at
178:
The operation to remove the bodies would then begin. Gabbai was given a pair of scissors and ordered to cut the hair off the women. Gabbai said he wailed "Where is God?" when cutting one woman's hair, as a sound emerged from her dead lips when he placed his foot on her belly. Gabbai and other
173:"When they opened the door...I see these people that half an hour before were going , I see them all standing up, some black and blue from the gas. No place where to go. Dead. If I close my eyes, the only thing I see is standing up, women with children in their hands."
187:
Gabbai was a
Sonderkommando member for eight and a half months, during which time he and the 950 other Sonderkommando members burned the bodies of the 600,000 gassed Jews that also arrived in that time, most of them Hungarian. On January 18, 1945, the
275:. Gabbai and Minardos met while emigrating from Greece to the States after the war and became close friends and roommates in Los Angeles in the 1950s. Gabbai was reunited with Minardos while attending a special screening of the documentary at the
163:
Gabbai was taken to
Crematorium II. As a member of the Sonderkommando, he found himself the closest to the extermination process and states to be one of 35 Greek men selected for that role, and was with his cousins and brother the whole time.
243:
Gabbai features throughout "Auschwitz - The Final
Witnesses", a 2000 film made by Sky for Channel 5 which reunited him with his two Sonderkommando cousins as they revisited the death camp together for the first time in over 50 years;
204:), and that many died en route; in addition, those who could no longer keep up would be shot. Gabbai says he survived the cold with verbal affirmations; closing his eyes and repeating "beautiful
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Gabbai was registered into the camp as prisoner 182568. He and the three other young men were selected to be
Sonderkommandos and quarantined in Block 13 (known as the
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Schweigen und Reden einer
Generation: Erinnerungsgespräche mit Opfern, Tätern und Mitläufern des Nationalsozialismus
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in the sunshine" to himself. Gabbai and other prisoners were eventually put into open rail cars, and arrived in
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At the end of the war, Gabbai was one of around 90 surviving
Auschwitz Sonderkommando members. He moved to the
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evacuated
Auschwitz, and the few thousand inmates that could walk were filed out of the camp on a
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Flax, Peter; Baum, Gary; Roxborough, Scott; Guthrie, Marisa; Lewis, Andy (16 December 2015).
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series, and also makes an appearance in the 1998 Steven Spielberg Holocaust documentary, "
8:
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Gabbai remained at Auschwitz until its evacuation in January 1945. He was liberated from
103:. He was deported to the camp in March 1944 and put to work in one of the crematoria at
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that were deported to the camp during the spring and summer of that year.
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Gray zones: ambiguity and compromise in the Holocaust and its aftermath
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126:, and spoke publicly about what he witnessed and experienced during
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328:"Hollywood's Last Survivors of the Holocaust share their stories"
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Gabbai died on March 25, 2020, in Los Angeles, at the age of 97.
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130:. He was the last of the known survivors of the Sonderkommando.
679:
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205:
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622:"Dario Gabbai, Auschwitz Sonderkommando survivor, dies at 97"
196:. Gabbai states that it was snowing and the temperature was -
155:) in the men's camp of Birkenau for approximately one month.
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88:
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Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
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Gabbai was also featured in a 2010 documentary film,
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would take them to the gas chambers and crematoria.
671:
608:"Watch Finding Nico Online | Vimeo on Demand"
279:, where Minardos was convalescing after a stroke.
232:under the sponsorship of the Jewish community in
710:
674:Auschwitz: the Nazis & the 'final solution'
652:Petropoulos, Jonathan; Roth, John K. (2007).
400:"Les membres des Sonderkommandos d'Auschwitz"
247:Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution'
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532:
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81:(September 2, 1922 – March 25, 2020) was a
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739:Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
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576:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287321/
543:Beyette, Beverly (October 20, 1999).
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357:Beyette, Beverly (October 20, 1999).
216:, from which he was liberated by the
749:Greek emigrants to the United States
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16:Greek Holocaust survivor (1922–2020)
486:Pfefferman, Naomi (19 April 2001).
307:History of the Jews in Thessaloniki
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638:Bertagnoli, Nicoletta (2007).
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406:(in French). Archived from
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218:U.S. 80th Infantry Division
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545:"Bearing Witness (page 2)"
214:Ebensee concentration camp
116:Ebensee concentration camp
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488:"Job of Infinite Horror"
453:Bertagnoli (2007), p. 50
428:Bertagnoli (2007), p. 49
389:Bertagnoli (2007), p. 48
518:Rees (2005), p. 234–235
734:Jews from Thessaloniki
333:The Hollywood Reporter
176:
588:"Finding Nico (2010)"
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153:Sonderkommando-Block
729:Greek Sephardi Jews
557:on October 24, 2013
500:on November 7, 2013
467:Rees (2005), p. 234
404:sonderkommando.info
159:Sonderkommando work
138:Gabbai was born in
656:. Berghahn Books.
610:. 19 January 2017.
410:on 4 November 2011
124:United States Army
93:Holocaust survivor
79:David Dario Gabbai
662:978-1-84545-302-2
648:978-3-85476-242-3
550:Los Angeles Times
364:Los Angeles Times
359:"Bearing Witness"
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47:Kingdom of Greece
39:September 2, 1922
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444:(2007), p. 392
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59:(2020-03-25)
43:Thessaloniki
23:Dario Gabbai
724:2020 deaths
719:1922 births
339:16 December
194:death march
134:Deportation
65:Los Angeles
713:Categories
561:August 24,
504:August 19,
370:August 24,
313:References
238:California
183:Evacuation
145:Judenrampe
69:California
35:1922-09-02
684:BBC Books
414:18 August
250:, a 2005
234:Cleveland
101:Auschwitz
702:57541764
670:(2005).
286:See also
224:Post-war
105:Birkenau
86:Sephardi
210:Austria
122:by the
120:Austria
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680:London
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206:Athens
71:, U.S.
442:et al
83:Greek
698:OCLC
688:ISBN
658:ISBN
644:ISBN
593:IMDb
563:2011
506:2011
416:2011
372:2011
341:2015
198:23°C
143:the
91:and
54:Died
29:Born
262:".
252:BBC
202:9°F
118:in
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89:Jew
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