Between 1945 and 1980, writings by six Jewish members of the Sonderkommando were discovered near the crematoria in Birkenau. The writings were varied, with some taking the form of farewell letters, and others containing descriptions of life in the ghetto, deportation to Auschwitz, and work in the Sonderkommando including the extermination of specific transports and the burning of corpses. Besides their important, unique value as sources—for instance, Lewental’s detailed account of how the October 1944 mutiny was prepared and carried out—they testify to the spiritual conflicts and psychological burdens inflicted on the prisoners employed in this Kommando.

(Mini dictionary of terms from the history of Auschwitz)