Wikipedia
Sonderkommandos were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommandos, who were always inmates, should not be confused with the SS-Sonderkommandos which were ad hoc units formed from various SS offices between 1938 and 1945.
The term itself in German means "special unit", and was part of the vague and euphemistic language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the Final Solution ( cf. Einsatzkommando units of the Einsatzgruppen death squads).
Sonderkommando ("Special unit" in German) commonly refers to the extermination camp Sonderkommando in Nazi Germany but may also refer to:
- Sonderkommando Arjas, a Latvian auxiliary police force during the Nazi German occupation
- Sonderkommando Blaich, a Luftwaffe operation in North Africa
- Sub-units of the Einsatzkommandos
- Sonderkommando Elbe, a Luftwaffe task force
- Sonderkommando photographs, secretly taken images of the operation of the Sonderkommandos
- SS-Sonderkommandos, special action units of the Schutzstaffel