Discusses diaries written by three sonderkommandos who were also active in the underground: Zalman Gradowski, Zalman Levental and Leib Langfus. Attempts to answer the questions - how did they cope with the realities they were forced to face? How did they perceive their own fate? and how was their religiosity articulated in their notes, and did it affect their attitudes to, and relations with, other fellow prisoners with whom they lived.