The Union Kommando in Auschwitz

Book excerpt: The Weichsel Union fuse factory was installed at Auschwitz in September 1943, after having been evacuated from Zaporozhe, Ukraine. Workers at the Union factory, the largest employer of female slave labor in Auschwitz, soon came to number ca. 2,500 and were known as the Union Kommando. Their work and living conditions were relatively good. The book comprises 36 memoirs of Jewish men and women, most of whom were Union Kommando members. Includes a memoir by Yisrael Gutman (pp. 144-160); he and some others also describe Jewish resistance at Auschwitz and the role of Union workers in the Sonderkommando uprising of October 1944. Discusses, also, unsuccessful efforts of former Weichsel Union slave laborers to receive compensation, while the firm received 2.5 million marks for the loss of its Auschwitz fuse factory.