
Inside the Gas Chambers
Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
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By:
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Shlomo Venezia
About this listen
Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a 'Sonderkommando', without realizing what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the 'special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies.
Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, 'Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944.
It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale—but, as a member of a 'Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story.
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- By Lisa H on 05-31-18
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Rescued from the Ashes
- The Diary of Leokadia Schmidt, Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto
- By: Leokadia Schmidt, Oscar E. Swan - translator
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gibel
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The diary of a young Jewish housewife who, together with her husband and five-month-old baby, fled the Warsaw ghetto at the last possible moment, and survived the Holocaust hidden on the "Aryan" side of town in the loft of a run-down tinsmith's shed. Rescued from the Ashes documents the incredible life story of Leokadia Schmidt and her small family and their daily struggle to survive the Warsaw Ghetto.
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Amazing details
- By Holly H on 12-11-24
By: Leokadia Schmidt, and others
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The Secret Holocaust Diaries
- The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister
- By: Nonna Bannister, Denise George, Carolyn Tomlin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Gallagher
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For half a century, a terrible secret lay hidden, locked in a trunk in an attic... photos, official documents, and scraps of a diary written by a young girl. "The time has come when I must share my life story... some facts from the past that could make a contribution, however small it may be, to the history of mankind." The Secret Holocaust Diaries is a haunting eyewitness account of Nonna Lisowskaja Bannister, a remarkable Russian-American woman who saw and survived unspeakable evils as a young girl.
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I respect Nonna
- By Susan on 12-26-11
By: Nonna Bannister, and others
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Auschwitz #34207
- The Joe Rubinstein Story
- By: Nancy Sprowell Geise
- Narrated by: Richard Rieman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Seventy years ago, Joe Rubinstein walked out of a Nazi concentration camp. Until now, his story has been hidden from the world. Shortly before dawn on a frigid morning in Radom, Poland, 21-year-old Joe answered a knock at the door of the cottage he shared with his widowed mother and siblings. German soldiers forced him onto a crowded open-air truck. Wearing only an undershirt and shorts, Joe was left on the truck with no protection from the cold. By the next morning, several around him would be dead. From there, things got worse for young Joe, much worse.
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A life changing read
- By mwatt on 03-26-16
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The Survivor
- How I Made it Through Six Concentration Camps and Became a Nazi Hunter
- By: Josef Lewkowicz
- Narrated by: Price Waldman
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When Nazi forces entered Kraków, Poland in 1939, unexpected and unresisted, Josef Lewkowicz's life became a nightmare overnight as he and his family were rounded up and sent to concentration camps across German-occupied territory. It wasn't long before Josef found himself face-to-face with SS kommandant Amon Goeth, whose brutality was made infamous by the film Schindler's List. As Josef struggled to survive the violence, horror, and degradations of one prison camp after another—he was kept alive only by his faith and his profound sense of justice.
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Every word
- By BONY on 04-16-25
By: Josef Lewkowicz
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The Auschwitz Photographer
- The Forgotten Story of the WWII Prisoner Who Documented Thousands of Lost Souls
- By: Luca Crippa, Maurizio Onnis
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Poland, 1939. Professional photographer Wilhelm Brasse is deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and finds himself in a deadly race to survive, assigned to work as the camp's intake photographer and take "identity pictures" of prisoners as they arrive by the trainload. The Auschwitz Photographer takes listeners behind the barbed wire fences of the world's most feared concentration camp, bringing Brasse's story to life as he clicks the shutter button thousands of times before ultimately joining the Resistance, defying the Nazis, and defiantly setting down his camera for good.
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More of an account than a story
- By Ronald washabaugh on 10-03-24
By: Luca Crippa, and others
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Empire of Destruction
- A History of Nazi Mass Killing
- By: Alex J. Kay
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Nazi Germany killed approximately 13 million civilians and other noncombatants in deliberate policies of mass murder, overwhelmingly during the war years. Almost half the victims were Jewish, systematically destroyed in the Holocaust, the core of the Nazis’ pan-European racial purification program. Alex Kay argues that the genocide of European Jewry can also be examined in the wider context of Nazi mass killing.
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Bleak, terrifying. Plumbs the depths
- By Dr Philip N Best on 11-22-22
By: Alex J. Kay
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Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
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Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
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The Nuremberg Interviews
- An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses
- By: Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine, Joshua Kane
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history’s greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a US Army psychiatrist. Dr. Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defense and prosecution witnesses.
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Interesting
- By John & Becky on 02-17-22
By: Leon Goldensohn, and others
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The Redhead of Auschwitz
- A True Story
- By: Nechama Birnbaum
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosie was always told her red hair was a curse, but she never believed it. She often dreamed what it would look like under a white veil with the man of her dreams by her side. However, her life takes a harrowing turn in 1944 when she is forced out of her home and sent to the most gruesome of places: Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Rosie’s head is shaved and along with the loss of her beautiful hair, she loses the life she once cherished.
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It’s so real…
- By Diane Findley on 07-02-22
By: Nechama Birnbaum
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I Escaped from Auschwitz
- The Shocking True Story of the World War II Hero Who Escaped the Nazis and Helped Save Over 200,000 Jews
- By: Rudolf Vrba, Alan Bestic, Sir Martin Gilbert - foreword, and others
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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April 7, 1944 - This date marks the successful escape of two Slovak prisoners from one of the most heavily-guarded and notorious concentration camps of Nazi Germany. The escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, fled over 100 miles to be the first to give the graphic and detailed descriptions of the atrocities of Auschwitz. Originally published in the early 1960s, I Escaped from Auschwitz is the striking autobiography of none other than Rudolf Vrba himself. Vrba details his life leading up to, during, and after his escape from his 21-month internment in Auschwitz.
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Best story from the Holocaust I’ve ever read!
- By Chuck812 on 01-10-21
By: Rudolf Vrba, and others
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Mengele
- The Complete Story
- By: Gerald Posner, John Ware, Michael Berenbaum - introduction
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on exclusive and unrestricted access to more than 5,000 pages of personal writings and family photos, this definitive biography of German physician and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Mengele (1911-1979) probes the personality and motivations of Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". From May 1943 through January 1945, Mengele selected who would be gassed immediately, who would be worked to death, and who would serve as involuntary guinea pigs for his spurious and ghastly human experiments (twins were Mengele's particular obsession).
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ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ
- By PAUL on 08-02-20
By: Gerald Posner, and others
What listeners say about Inside the Gas Chambers
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- Debi0576
- 03-30-24
Unique
This was an insightful telling of an individual’s experience with the management of various aspects of the cremation process utilized at Auschwitz. It’s inconceivable that these things occurred yet we know they did. I feel an obligation to know about the horrible things that occurred during WWII. These things can never occur again. These horrors cannot be forgotten.
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- Christopher
- 02-07-24
Concise and powerful account and history
This book provides a unique and rare perspective that I have never heard before (and I've read listened to several Holocaust survival stories). It is concise, well written and well narrated.
As a bonus of sorts, the end of the book provides a full chronology of the Nazi's despicable treatment of European Jews - again, something I've not encountered in any other books on the topic.
As I've said in my reviews of similar books, this is a story that must be heard, especially in today's environment of rising antisemitism. The unique perspective of the author drives home the horror, brutality, and stark inhumanity of the Nazis and illustrates clearly man's capacity for cruelty when groupthink takes over.
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- JULIE SANFORD
- 08-23-24
Grim details of the horrific life in the camps
The storyline and narration was very engaging but many times during the story the narrator stopped and said “note then further explained something”. That was quite annoying. Should have just incorporated the details in the story
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- Rodney
- 03-14-23
Excellent book
This book is actually a Q&A with a survivor of the concentration camps, and it's one of the better books I've read on the subject. Everything in it seems completely believable, the claims don't sound exaggerated or embellished, which is a real problem with some books in this segment. I've probably read close to 50 books from Holocaust survivors at this point, and this is absolutely in the top tier of those books.
Although it's a Q&A format, the questioner stays out of the way of things, ands because of that it reads more like a narrative history, which is great.
Overall this is a very good book, it's easy for anyone to pick-up and read (so long as they can handle the subject) regardless of their familiarity with the holocaust, and it's never boring or dry.
The reader also does a very good job, sounds engaged but also doesn't veer into overacting, which can distract from books with this subject matter.
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- Michael Costa
- 12-12-23
Amazing listen
Such a powerful book detailing all aspects of the gas chambers.
Honestly I struggled to listen to it at times, as it’s very descriptive, but amazing book nevertheless.
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- Lois L. Van Broekhoven
- 06-06-23
Accurate
I really appreciated the historical accuracy and the facts that were presented both along the way and at the end. Thank for sharing your story.
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- J. Gross
- 07-24-24
Wunderbar. It’s a long review but it’s detailed.
“Inside the Gas chambers” is an extremely fascinating title giving the first place account of
Shlomo Venezia. The book is written differently than a typical story. It is written more as an interview between Shlomo and a woman as she prepares to write his story. At first it is a tad confusing but after a couple times it adds to the effect of the book, and, for me, helped my understanding of the barbaric Nazis. Also to understand the moral decline of starved mistreated people. How they began to steal each others food. Making others starve in order to help himself, etc. Horrifying. This book comes from the perspective of an Italian Jew, different from the normal Holocaust books. The narrator may be a bit dull for some but I found it fitting for the way the book is written and sometimes it’s easier to swallow certain topics. The way the pronunciation of German in the book is done is executed perfectly by the narrator immersing the reader further into the land the millions of people lived in the 1940’s and earlier. Shlomo’s accounts are well documented and detailed leaving no room for doubt or questions. All are answered very deeply. A neat tid bit I would suggest to the reader who really should read this book is also to read “Auschwitz” by Dr Miklos Nyiszli (I read this book before Shlomo’s). There are multiple crossovers between these two books and it’s so enthralling and baffling to think that these two men were working at the same time in the Crematoriums and experienced many of the same events; however they detail many different things. Miklos was Dr Mengele’s top assistant (forced of course) and dissected all of Mengeles victims. He worked in Crematorium 2. Whereas Shlomo worked in Crematorium 3 (if I remember right) as a typical Saunder Commando. Also for further reading the “Tatooist of Auschwitz” also had crossovers with these above titles in respect to the Romas and when they were liquidated etc. all these men were in each others lives and had no idea. Fascinating. Wunderbar.
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- A. M.
- 06-06-24
Powerful
It's hard to understand it unless you go there to see it for yourself. To survive it and tell the tale is a blessing.
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- Alexis
- 02-11-25
Heart wrenching
A must read if you want to know the truth. My understanding was very low until I read this book. There is so much information I will need to read it again. The history at the end of the book is excellent.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-01-25
sad days
sad humans can do this to each other we can only hope that something like this never happens again only time will tell
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