On Auschwitz

One of the important questions about Auschwitz is why the prisoners, who outnumbered the SS guards, did not make an attempt of a general revolt or uprising. Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz and Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Museum Research Center discuss the first encounter of prisoners with the realities of the camp, their adaptation to the conditions of existence and the possibilities of initiating a revol...

Although the SS took various measures to keep the functioning of the camp secret, especially when Auschwitz became both a concentration camp and extermination center, news about the camp got out. Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, talks about how information about Auschwitz could reach the world.

Over two hundred women served the SS in KL Auschwitz. They were divided into three groups according to the duties they performed: the biggest group constituted the so-called Aufseherinnen,  whose main task was to watch over women prisoners; the second group was formed by women employed in communication services described as  SS-Helferinnen  working in SS headquarters offices as radiotelegraph oper...

In the history of Auschwitz, there were instances when prisoners tried to resist. The most famous event is the Sonderkommando revolt that took place at Auschwitz II-Birkenau on 7 October 1944. This story is told in episode 21 of our podcast . However, there were other cases of prisoners organising resistance in order to attack SS members, or to escape. These included: -) the revolt and escape of p...

One of the prisoners in the first transport of women to Auschwitz - 999 women transferred from Ravensbrück concentration camp in March 1942 - was Sophie Stippel. She was registered as prisoner number 619.  She was arrested because she belonged to the group of Jehovah's Witnesses.  A few days after arrival, Sophie was employed as a domestic helper in the villa of the camp commandant, Rudolf Hös...

One of the elements of the operation of the Auschwitz camp was looting of the property of people deported to the camp. This was most intensified when Nazi Germany began the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz.  Most of the property - after being sorted and disinfected - was sent to the Third Reich, where it was handed over to various groups of the German population, organizations and institutions....

You have arrived not at a sanatorium but at a German concentration camp in which the only way out is through the chimney. If someone doesn’t like this, he may at once go to the wires. If there are any Jews in this transport, they have no right to live longer than two weeks. If there are any priests, they may live for a month, the rest only three months. This is how the speech given by Auschwitz ca...

After the liberation of Auschwitz, its two main parts - the former main camp (Auschwitz I) and Auschwitz II-Birkenau - were first placed under the control of the Soviet military authorities. In the first of these, from February to September 1945, Soviet field hospitals and the Polish Red Cross hospital operated, where most of the surviving prisoners were treated. A transit camp for German prisoner...

The analysis of the surviving documents of the camp administration makes it possible, on the one hand, to trace how the centralised concentration camp system administered by the SS in Nazi Germany functioned, while, on the other hand, it also shows various aspects of the functioning of the camp itself and the members of its garrison. One example is the surviving correspondence concerning the attem...

The Germans incarcerated at least 464 priests, seminarians & monks as well as 35 nuns in #Auschwitz. Teresa Wontor Cichy, from the Museum’s Research Center talks about the fate of Christian clergy and about religious life in the camp. See also our online course: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_18_duchowienstwo/

The Auschwitz II-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria never became targets for Allied bombing, despite reports about their existence forwarded both by the Polish resistance movement and some people who escaped from the camp. Instead, American bombers carried out several strikes against the IG Farben petrochemical installations located at the distance of seven kilometers from Auschwitz.  Dr. Piotr...

One of the groups of witnesses to the crimes perpetrated at the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz were British prisoners of war who were forced to work on the construction of the IG Farbenindustrie factory. The building site was located in the immediate vicinity of the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp and a few kilometers from the Auschwitz I main camp. British prisoners of war were also e...

On 27 January 1945, Red Army soldiers liberated over 7,000 prisoners of the Auschwitz. The 1,689-day history of this concentration and extermination camp came to an end. Dr Jacek Lachendro of the Museum Research Centre tells us what the last days of Auschwitz looked like and what happened immediately after the liberation. See also our online lesson about evacuation, liquidation and liberation of A...

In the second half of 1944, due to the Red Army successes and the advancing Eastern Front, the SS authorities in Auschwitz decided to evacuate some 65,000 prisoners to camps in the German Reich interior. At the same time, they began to destroy the evidence of the crimes committed in the camp. Dr. Jacek Lachendro from the Research Center of the Museum talks about the last period of the operation of...

After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. Heinrich Himmler gave the order to create a "German settlement area" around the occupied Polish town of Zamość. The population of that region was to be expelled and replaced by German settlers. The area was chosen for its agricultural character. It consisted of five towns and 696 villages. The displaced population was sent to transit camps, whe...

Listen to the interview with Dr. Maria Zalewska who is the editor of a unique cookbook "Honey Cake & Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors". "More than a cookbook, this collection of heirloom recipes conveys Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors’ stories through the mnemonic lens of cooking and food. Collected and edited during the pandemic, this book—in the words of Ro...

The camp orchestra played for the first time at the German camp Auschwitz at the beginning of January 1941. Initially there were seven musicians there, but the ensemble grew very quickly. The main task was to play military marches to the rhythm of which the prisoners marched as they left for work and returned to the camp. The orchestra also gave concerts for the SS garrison members and prisoners....

It might seem that we already know everything about the history of places such as Auschwitz, because several decades have passed since the events and we have access to a great many documents and thousands of testimonies. However, this is not true. We are constantly learning new facts about the history of the camp, as Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Memorial Research Centre, explains in our p...

At the end of July 1941 the camp commander Karl Fritzch selected 10 hostages from among the prisoners in Block 14 in retaliation for the escape of a prisoner. He condemned them to death by starvation in the bunker of Block 11. During the selection, a Polish prisoner who was a Franciscan monk and missionary, Maksymilian Kolbe (no. 16670), stepped out of link and asked the camp commander to take him...

The Archives of the Auschwitz Memorial collect, preserve, and provide access to documents and materials connected mainly with the history of the Auschwitz camp. The collection includes original German camp records, copies of documents obtained from other institutions in Poland and abroad, source material of postwar provenance (memoirs, accounts by survivors, material from the trials of Nazi war cr...

On October 7, 1944 a revolt took place at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, in the Sonderkommando - the special work unit that consisted mainly of Jewish prisoners whom the Germans forced to work in gas chambers, burning pits areas and crematoria. Dr. Igor Bartosik of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about the background of resistance of the Sonderkommando and the revolt itself. In the p...

“Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human” is a new book by the Auschwitz Museum Director Dr. Piotr Cywiński. It is the first attempt - on a global scale - to delve so deeply into human emotions inside the camp. It is a must-read for those seeking to understand what Auschwitz was all about. The gathering of materials and work on the publication took almost six years. Piotr Cywiński analysed nearly 250...

During the time of operation of Auschwitz, some 8,100-8,200 SS men worked there as part of the camp garrison. In our podcast Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of Research Center of the Auschwitz Memorial, talks about functioning of the SS garrison in the Auschwitz camp complex, its organizational structure and everyday work in the management, functioning, and isolation of the camp. We also recommend...

In the thousands of preserved registration photographs of Auschwitz prisoners, we can see faces of the men and women imprisoned in the camp.  Dr Wojciech Płosa, the head of Auschwitz Memorial Archives, talks about the history of these photographs.

The Auschwitz concentration camp had almost 50 sub‑camps. The largest of them had extensive administrative structures, separate hospital barracks, showers and even small crematoria. In the smaller ones, prisoners were locked up for the night in rooms or cellars—there were no fences or guard towers there and meals were delivered from the main camp. The majority of prisoners were employed in the arm...