Zalman Gradowski


Zalman Gradowski or Chaim Zalman Gradowski originally from Suwałki, was a Polish Jewish prisoner of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during the Holocaust in occupied Poland. He arrived in November 1942 aboard a Holocaust train from Kalabosin. After "selection" his family members perished. He was sent to work in the Sonderkommando slave labour unit.

Secret diary

In order to bear witness for future generations, Gradowski wrote a secret diary, describing his life and the camp. He buried his notebook in the camp as a time capsule. In it, Gradowski gave a detailed description of the extermination process in Birkenau. He was one of the key figures in the Sonderkommando underground at Auschwitz, where he was murdered during the revolt of 7 October 1944.
A quotation from the diary is used as an epigram for the 2015 book KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps: "May the world at least behold a drop, a fraction of this tragic world in which we lived."