Sonderkommando 1005. The men who burned the bodies.

The word Holocaust comes from a Greek word meaning complete destruction by fire. This was the fate that the National Socialists had for their enemies during WW2 and it is fitting that this term should have been given to what happened to their victims. However initially the Nazis buried those that they killed, a change of policy occurred in 1942 which is the subject of this presentation. Three things occurred on 7 December 1941 which brought about this change. The first was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which following Hitler’s declaration of war against the Soviet Union on 11 December 1941 turned a European conflict into a world war. It is also when the Soviet offensive in front of Moscow gathered steam and began to push German forces away from Moscow resulting in capturing thousands of square kilometres of land formerly occupied by them. Finally, in a small town in Poland, Koło, the Jewish population was gathered together, locked up in the synagogue and transported in groups to the death cam