Filip Müller
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Filip Müller (3 January 1922 – 9 November 2013) was a Jewish Slovak Holocaust survivor and ''
Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') 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 vict ...
'' at
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, the largest Nazi German concentration camp during World War II, where he witnessed the murders of tens of thousands of people.


Auschwitz

Müller was born in Sereď in the Czechoslovak Republic. In April 1942, he was sent on one of the earliest Holocaust transports to Auschwitz II where he was given prisoner number 29236. Müller was assigned to the ''
Sonderkommando ''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') 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 vict ...
'' that worked on the construction of
crematoria Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
and the installation of the gas chambers. Once the crematoria were completed, Müller was assigned to a ''Sonderkommando'' unit tasked with operating the killing facilities; his performing this role, he believed, was the only reason the Germans kept him alive. Müller's unit would meet new arrivals of men, women, and children at the undressing area just outside the gas chambers, in the basement of the crematoria. He testified he would tell the terrified new arrivals that they were somewhere safe. Once the SS had given the command, the naked victims would be herded into the gas chambers, where they were gassed with the cyanic crystalline poison Zyklon B. After the victims had been murdered, Müller's unit was tasked with the removal of the bodies and grouping them by size and fatty tissue to facilitate their disposal in the crematoria. The victims' clothes were collected and disinfected, and all valuables to be surrendered to the SSsome of which the ''Sonderkommando'' would pocket for bartering purposes.


Survival

Sonderkommando units were periodically murdered to eradicate witnesses but Müller managed to survive in Auschwitz for over two years. Eventually, Müller decided to end his life by joining a group of the first liquidation of Theresienstadt family camp inside the gas chambers. While awaiting his fate, a girl who recognized him came up to him, stating, Müller came to believe that he had a duty to stay alive so that he could join other survivors and become a living witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. He remained at Auschwitz until January 1945, when the camp was evacuated before the arrival of the Red Army. After a death march into Germany, he was liberated from the Mauthausen subcamp of Gunskirchen in May 1945.


Testimony

Müller first testified during his hospital recovery. His statement was originally published in an obscure Czech collection, but it was reprinted in the 1966 book ''The Death Factory'', written by two other Holocaust survivors,
Erich Kulka Erich Kulka (18 February 191112 July 1995) was a Czech-Israeli writer, historian and journalist who survived the Holocaust. After World War II, he made it his life's mission to research the Holocaust and publicize facts about it. Biography ...
and Ota Kraus. Müller testified at the second Frankfurt Auschwitz trials in 1964. He stated that, in the summer of 1942, he was transferred from the ''Sonderkommando'' of Crematorium One, where he spent six weeks, to Monowitz. The Monowitz Subcamp, from the main Auschwitz site, was a labor camp run by the German firm
IG Farben Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, ...
, and there were no crematoria there."Vernehmung des Zeugen Filip Müller". Frankfurter Auschwitz-Prozess. "Strafsache gegen Mulka u.a." 4 Ks 2/63. 97. Verhandlungstag, 5 May 1964.; 98. Verhandlungstag, 8 October 1964. For the remainder of his imprisonment at Auschwitz, Müller worked mainly at
Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, where the main crematoria were located. After 1969, Müller lived in the West. He died in Mannheim, Baden-Wurttemberg on 9 November 2013, at the age of 91.


See also

*
Henryk Mandelbaum Henryk Mandelbaum (December 15, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was a Polish Holocaust survivor. He was one of the prisoners in the '' Sonderkommando KL Auschwitz-Birkenau'' in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who had to work in the crematory. ...
– Polish ''Sonderkommando'' survivor of Auschwitz *
André Rogerie André Rogerie (25 December 1921 – May 2014
– French resistance leader, survivor of seven concentration camps, and postwar trial witness


References


Footnotes


Bibliography

*


External links

* at Sonderkommando.info * at Remember.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Filip 1922 births 2013 deaths Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Slovak Jews Sonderkommando Czechoslovak emigrants to Germany