David Dario Gabbai (September 2, 1922 – March 25, 2020) was a Greek Sephardi Jew and Holocaust survivor, notable for his role as a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz.
He was liberated from Ebensee concentration camp in Austria by the United States Army, and spoke publicly about what he witnessed and experienced during the Holocaust.
[2] At the age of 21 or 22 years old, Gabbai and his entire family were detained by the Nazis on March 24, 1944, and on April 1 they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle wagons.
[6] As a member of the Sonderkommando, he found himself the closest to the extermination process and states to be one of 35 Greek men selected for that role, and was with his cousins and brother the whole time.
[8] In one instance, Gabbai recognized two of his friends from Thessaloniki, explained to them the reality of what was going to happen and told them where to stand in the gas chamber so that they would be killed as quickly as possible.
[9] On January 18, 1945, the SS evacuated Auschwitz, and the few thousand inmates that could walk were filed out of the camp on a death march.
"[11] He has compared the "lingering pain of what happened at Auschwitz to a virus that lies dormant [in him] until something triggers it", and said that there were moments when his Sonderkommando cohorts would have preferred to die, but then reconsidered, knowing that if they survived they would be able to tell the world what they witnessed.
"[6] Gabbai features throughout "Auschwitz - The Final Witnesses", a 2000 film made by Sky for Channel 5 which reunited him with his two Sonderkommando cousins as they revisited the death camp together for the first time in over 50 years;[12] Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', a 2005 BBC six-episode documentary film series, and also makes an appearance in the 1998 Steven Spielberg Holocaust documentary, "The Last Days".
[14] Gabbai and Minardos met while emigrating from Greece to the States after the war and became close friends and roommates in Los Angeles in the 1950s.