The last living member of the SonderKommando ("special unit" in German) in Poland, Henryk Mandelbaum passed away Tuesday, at age 85. The SonderKommando was the euphemism the Nazis used for the corps of Jews forced to handle the corpses of their brethren, after they were gassed. The SonderKommando removed the gold jewelry, fillings and other valuables on the bodies of the murdered. Mandelbaum performed that function in Auschwitz.

Historian Igor Bartosik of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, co-author of a book soon to be published about Mandelbaum, let be known that Mandelbaum passed away today at a hospital in the city of Bytom, in southern Poland.