Shlomo Venezia was a sonderkommando at the Auschwitz crematoriums 

For eight months in 1944, he loaded the corpses of his fellow Jews into the Nazi ovens -- 12 hours a day, seven days a week, cadaver after cadaver until it became a mechanical task, like feeding a heating furnace with cords of wood.

In his memoir, ``Sonderkommando Auschwitz,'' Venezia provides an unflinching account of the barbarous banality of the Nazi death machine. 

He Gassed His Own Poppa

He recalls, for example, the day he met his father's emaciated cousin in an undressing room at the gas chambers. Venezia offered him the only solace possible, he writes -- some sardines and a lie that the Zyklon B would kill him quickly.

``It was just terrible to have to lie, but there was no way around it,'' Venezia explains. ``I tried in some way to make the horrible situation easier.''
 

Mother Murdered

He was 20 years old when he put his own momma in the oven.  

Many Pretty Woman

Cutting the hair off cadavers, pulling their gold teeth and dragging them to the furnaces became mechanical, Venezia says. The routine broke down only when the prisoners were confronted with body of young beautiful woman.

One looked like ``a woman in a painting,'' Venezia says, pausing for a moment in reflection. ``Like Mona Lisa.'' Yet there was nothing to do but cremate her.

Nazis Shoot Mothers Nursing Babies

Another day, his unit found a live baby trying to suck its dead mother's breast among a heap of corpses in a gas chamber. The prisoners watched without protest as a Nazi guard unloaded his pistol into the infant.

``There were so many terrible things that happened,'' he says. ``Every day it was something else.''
 

Izzie Forgot About Auschwitz Till 1992

Venezia never talked about Auschwitz -- even with his wife and children -- until he visited the camp in 1992. At the time, Italy was experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism, and he decided to tell his story.

Since then, he has returned to Auschwitz 46 times, often accompanying groups. He gives talks at schools across Italy.
 

Izzie Wrote A Book

`Sonderkommando Auschwitz: La Verita Sulle Camere a Gas'' (``The Truth About the Gas Chambers'') is published by Rizzoli. Polity Press of Britain owns the global rights for an English version of the book, which is slated for release next year.