Shlomo Venezia (1923–2012)

Shlomo Venezia was born in Thessaloniki, Greece to an Italian Jewish family. In March 1944, during World War II, he and his entire family were arrested and deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Nazi doctors selected Shlomo, his brother Maurice (Morris), and two cousins to work in the camp. Shlomo was forced to work in the Sonderkommando ("special units") of prisoners who dealt with the disposal and cremation of those killed in the gas chambers. Usually, the members of the Sonderkommando teams were killed in order to keep secret the the systematic murder of the Jewish people. Shlomo Venezia was one of the very few who survived and the only Italian among them. He published his memoir, Sonderkommando Auschwitz, in 2007. After the war, Shlomo became a leading spokesmen for the tragedy of the Holocaust as a guest on television, in schools, and at memorial events. He was featured in the documentary "Auschwitz: The Final Witness," a 2001 New York Film Festival-winning film that reunited him with his brother and cousin as they revisited the death camp together for the first time in more than 50 years.