Poland's last surviving member of a Sonderkommando dies at 85

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Henryk Mandelbaum, who was forced by the Nazis to strip fellow Jews of valuables and gold teeth after they were gassed at Auschwitz, died on Tuesday, a historian said. He was 85. Mandelbaum died at a hospital in the southern Polish city of Bytom several days after undergoing heart surgery, said Igor Bartosik, a historian at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum who has co-written an upcoming book on Mandelbaum. Bartosik said he did not know the exact cause of death, and hospital officials refused to comment. Mandelbaum was Poland's last surviving member of a Sonderkommando - groups of Jewish prisoners forced to handle the bodies of fellow Jews who were gassed and burned. Mandelbaum was forced as a prisoner to strip victims' bodies of their valuables, pull out their gold teeth and fillings and carry them to crematoria for burning.