The official podcast of the Auschwitz Memorial. The history of Auschwitz is exceptionally complex. It combined two functions: a concentration camp and an extermination center. Nazi Germany persecuted various groups of people there, and the camp complex continually expanded and transformed itself. In the podcast ”On Auschwitz,” we discuss the details of the history of the camp as well as our contemporary memory of this important and special place.
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Online lessons: http://lesson.auschwitz.org
The podcast On Auschwitz is created by Auschwitz Memorial. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
The Auschwitz camp did not have a homogeneous character and was constantly changing during its operation. Dr Jacek Lachendro of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre talks about what everyday life was like for Auschwitz prisoners, from the morning roll-call, through the hunger that accompanied them all the time, to working beyond their strength.
Voiceover: Ian Manger, Tom Vamos
If you find value in the "On Auschwitz" podcast, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform, leaving a rating to help others discover the podcast, and sharing it on social media.
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The Auschwitz Memorial covers nearly 200 hectares of land and includes about 300 ruins and 155 buildings, but also a huge number of historical objects, primary traces of Victims of Auschwitz: shoes, suitcases, brushes, or kitchen utensils.
Nel Jastrzębiowska and Andrzej Jastrzębiowski from the Conservation Laboratories of the Auschwitz Museum explain how these priceless items are preserved and talk about the philosophy of conservation of the Memorial today.
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We wish to thank Kate Weinrieb, Greg Littlefield, and Mike Skagerlind, who recorded the voiceover for this podcast.
If you find value in the "On Auschwitz" podcast, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform, leaving a rating to help others discover the podcast, and sharing it on social media.
Your support makes a difference.
Holocaust denial is nothing more than a conspiracy theory built on lies and hatred. Although it resembles flat-Earth claims in its approach to facts, it is, in reality, a dangerous and vile vehicle for antisemitism and hatred. Deniers ignore or manipulate facts solely to attack the memory of the Victims.
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz and Dr. Igor Bartosik delve into the strategies employed by Holocaust deniers to spread misinformation and falsehoods about the history of Auschwitz.
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We wish to thank Greg Littlefield, Mike Skagerlind, and Grey Stafford, who recorded the voiceover for this podcast.
Some 7,500 prisoners of the German Nazi camp Auschwitz, including over 500 children, were liberated on January 27, 1945 by Red Army soldiers.
Listen about the last days of the camp's operation and the moment of liberation. The podcast includes testimonies of:
Anna Tytoniak
Kazimierz Smoleń
Lea Shinar
Irena Konieczna
Józef Tabaczyński
Wanda Błachowska-Tarasiewicz
Louis Posner
Jakub Wolman
Zofia Jankowska-Palińska
Anna Chomicz
Zofia Lutomska-Kucharska
Wanda Dramińska
Edward Czempiel
Jakub Gordon
Andrzej Kozłowski
Tadeusz Mleko
Garnier (first name unknown)
Alfred Fiderkiewicz
Aleksander Vorontsov
Wilhelm Wazdrąg
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(English voiceovers: Mary Castillo, Toon Dreessen, Greg Littlefield, Ian Manger, Therese McLaughlin, Calum Melville, Mike Skagerlind, Grey Stafford, Michael Takiff, Tom Vamos, Kate Weinrieb, Sarah Weinstein Edwards).
Soviet prisoners of war are the fourth largest group of victims of the German Auschwitz camp, after Jews, Poles and Roma. A total of 11,964 prisoners of war were registered at the camp. In addition, according to estimates, at least 3,000 Red Army soldiers were deported to the camp and murdered without being entered into the camp records.
Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Museum's Research Center talks about the history and fate of Soviet POWs at Auschwitz.
Upon admission to the camp, prisoners underwent a registration process, during which various documents related to the individual were filled out. Dr. Wojciech Płosa, head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives, talks about the details of this process.
We wish to thank Toon Dressen for recording the English voiceover.
Josef Mengele was a doctor of medicine and philosophy, an assistant to Prof. Otmar von Verschuer in the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, member of the Nazi Party and the SS.
In Auschwitz, he was the chief physician in the Roma and Sinti Family Camp in Birkenau, and from August to December 1944, he was also the chief physician of the entire Birkenau camp.
Mengele was responsible for the experiments on human heredity. He was never punished for his crimes. Dr Agnieszka Kita from the Archives of the Muzeum talks about Josef Mengele.
English voiceover: Therese McLaughlin
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Online lesson on medicine in Auschwitz: https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/2022_medycyna_en/
Listen to the podcast about medicine in Auschwitz: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2s2Jb91u55L6s80XUlq5JW?si=8kHYPgQXS1mIwabnrRaNqg
The podcast on experiments: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Ij4icZ6kicc96gWL3f3y0?si=_VwpbejMRiOOhvmIxmBdUA
Prisoners of Auschwitz were able to send various types of illegal messages—both within the camp and outside the barbed wire fences. Some were short letters addressed to family members; others were messages and reports for underground resistance organizations. Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives, discusses this unique collection of documents.
Nazi Germany deported some 1,3 million people to Auschwitz. Only a little above 400 thousand were registered in the camp as prisoners. Some could conduct correspondence with the outside world, however it had a unique character.
Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Archives of the Museum talks about official prisoners’ correspondence: letters and postcards sent out from the camp and sent to the camp by their relatives.
Bogdan Bartnikowski was born in Warsaw in 1932. During the Warsaw Uprising, he and his mother were expelled from their home. The Germans initially sent them to a transit camp in Pruszków, and then deported them to Auschwitz where they were separated.
On January 11, 1945, both were evacuated to Berlin-Blankenburg, where they were imprisoned until their liberation on April 22, 1945. After this, they returned to Warsaw.
Bogdan Bartnikowski is the author of memoirs, including "Childhood Behind Barbed Wire.”
In the „On Auschwitz" podcast, we invite you to listen to an interview with Bogdan Bartnikowski about his wartime experiences.
In August and September 1944 - after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising - almost 13,000 inhabitants of the occupied capital city and surrounding towns: men, women, the elderly, children, even infants, were deported to Auschwitz by the German authorities. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre talks about their fate in the camp.
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We wish to thank Kate Weinrieb for her help in the production of the English version of the podcast.
In the picture: Jadwiga and Aleksander Bogdaszewski with their children, photograph taken in 1944, in Warsaw. Apart from two-year-old Basia, who was in hospital when the Uprising broke out, the rest of the family were expelled from Warsaw and then, on 12 August, deported to Auschwitz. Aleksander was next transferred to Flossenbürg, where he died in 1944, whereas Jadwiga was transferred in a women’s transport to another camp in Germany. Their children, Zdzisława, aged 10, and Stanisław, aged 6, were liberated in Auschwitz.
The first publications about Auschwitz were published during the war, while the camp was still in operation. The immediate postwar years also abounded in numerous publications by witnesses-Survivors of those events. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Museum Research Center discusses the advantages of literature written by direct witnesses over literary fiction inspired by the subject of Auschwitz.
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Books Published before 1950:
ZAREMBINA Natalia, Auschwitz. The Camp of Death (ENG).
SZMAGLEWSKA SEWERYNA, Smoke over Birkenau 1947, (ENG).
ŻYWULSKA Krystyna, I survived Auschwitz (ENG).
BOROWSKI Tadeusz, SIEDLECKI Janusz Nel, OLSZEWSKI Krystyn, We were in Auschwitz, (ENG).
FRANKL Victor, Ein Psycholog Erlebt das Konzentrationslager, 1946 (GER).
NYISZLI Miklos, Dr. Mengele boncoló orvosa voltam az auschwitzi krematóriumban, 1947, (HUN).
NYISZLI Miklos, Auschwitz: A doctor’s Eyewitness Account, 1947; I was Doctor Mengele’s Assistant.
MILLU Liana, Il fumo di Birkenau (IT), 1947.
Published after 1950:
BOROWSKI Tadeusz, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (ENG)
ZIĘBA Adam, A Piece of Bread (ENG).
GAWALEWICZ Adolf, Reflections in the Gas Chamber’s Waiting Room: From the Memoirs of a Muselmann.
SOBOLEWICZ Tadeusz, But I survived.
BARTNIKOWSKI Bogdan, Childhood Behind Barbed Wire.
DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, One of the girls in the band (ENG).
DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Les chemins de ma vie (FRA).
DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Los caminos de mi vida (ESP).
DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Wege meines Lebens (GER)
LEVI Primo, If This Is a Man.
LEVI Primo, The Truce.
WIESEL Elie, Night.
FRANKL Victor, Men’s Search for Meaning.
LAKS Szymon, Music of Another World.
AMERY Jean, At the Mond’s Limits.
LIBLAU Charles, I kapo di Auschwitz (IT).
LIBLAU Charles, Les kapo d’Auschwitz (FRA).
MELMERSTEIN Mel, By Bread Alone: The Story of 4685.
KERTESZ Imre, Fateless.
BUERGENTHAL Thomas, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy.
CLING Maurice, Vous qui entrez ici (FRA).
LENGYEL Olga, Five Chimneys.
KORNREICH-GELISSEN Rena, Rena’s Promise.
ROSENBERG Otto, A Gypsy in Auschiwtz.
DELBO Charlotte, None of Us Will Return.
HANAK Vladimir, Mrtwy se vratil (CZECH)
Sonderkommando:
VENEZIA Szlomo, Inside the Gas Chambers.
MULLER Filip, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers.
Children:
BIRENBAUM Halina, Hope is the Last to Die.
ZYSKIND Sara, The Stolen Years (ENG).
KLUGER Ruth, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (ENG).
MULLER-MADEJ Stella, A girl From Chindlers List (ENG).
Escapes:
ALBIN Kazimierz, Warrant of Arrest (ENG).
BIELECKI Jerzy, Wer ein Leben rettet… (GER).
KOWALCZYK August, A Barbed Wire Refrain.
About SS men:
Auschwitz Seen by the SS.
The Private Lives of the Auschwitz SS, red. Piotr SETKIEWICZ.
In the German concentration camps, including Auschwitz, there was a group of so-called ‘functionary’ prisoners, responsible for supervising other prisoners. They were mainly in charge of supervising the work units, keeping order in the blocks or barracks, but also distributing food among the prisoners.
Being a lageraeltester, a block leader, or a kapo meant almost unlimited power over the prisoners. Sometimes the functionary prisoner became the master of life and death.
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Auschwitz Muzeum Research Centre, talks about the complex history of this group of prisoners at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was the only German concentration camp where tattooing of numbers was applied to prisoners. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Museum Research Center talks about why and when such a system was introduced, and whether all prisoners of Auschwitz were tattooed.
We wish to thank Kate Weinrieb for her help in the production of the English version of the podcast.
Polish soldier, Witold Pilecki was imprisoned in Auschwitz on 22 September 1940.
Pilecki undertook the mission to infiltrate the camp in order to create a conspiracy network there, organize communications, send reliable data about German crimes in the camp, and possibly prepare the camp's prisoners for a possible fight.
In April 1943, Witold Pilecki escaped with two fellow inmates. He wrote reports in which he described the camp terror and the tragic fate of the prisoners, as well as the progressive development of the extermination of the Jewish people in Auschwitz.
Dr. Adam Cyra, the author of his biography, talks about the life, work, and tragic death of Witold Pilecki.
On 15 February 2024, the Polish premiere of the film 'The Zone of Interest,' directed and written by Jonathan Glazer, was held at the Auschwitz Museum. The film, depicting the family life of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Höss, was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It also received two Oscars.
Director Jonathan Glazer, production designer Chris Oddy, and producers Jim Wilson, Ewa Puszczynska, and Bartosz Rainski participated in the post-screening discussion moderated by the director of the Auschwitz Museum Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński..
We invite you to listen to extensive fragments of the meeting.
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We wish to thank Kate Weinrieb who recorded the women's voiceover in the podcast.
The Auschwitz camp was established in June 1940 for male prisoners. The first groups of women were incarcerated by the Germans more than a year and a half later - at the end of March 1942. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka and Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Museum Research Centre talk about the reasons for the creation of the women's camp in Auschwitz and the circumstances surrounding it.
We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken as well as Kate Weinrieb for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
The Auschwitz camp was liberated on January 27, 1945, by soldiers of the Red Army. Well-known are the scenes captured by Soviet cameramen, which, although not showing the exact moment of liberation, are important documents revealing the crimes committed by the Germans in Auschwitz.
It is essential to remember that some of the film material was created for propaganda purposes. Edyta Chowaniec from the Film Archive of the Museum explains the circumstances of the creation of the so-called Auschwitz Liberation Chronicle
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We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
On January 17, 1945, SS men began the evacuation of the Auschwitz camp. Approximately 56,000 prisoners – men and women marched, under armed escort, from different parts of the Auschwitz camp complex, towards Wodzisław Śląski and Gliwice. Thousands of people, during the so-called Death Marches, lost their lives. Dr. Jacek Lachendro and Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum talk about details of those tragic events.
We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum is in possession of the largest collection of art related to the Auschwitz camp. This collection is unique on a world scale. The artworks created in conditions of extreme danger are an extraordinary document of history and time that still stir the emotions to this day.
They enable one to discover the feelings and emotions, difficult to reconstruct today, that accompanied the inmates on a daily basis. It is because of this huge historical and emotional value that camp art is extremely precious and provides a universal message which can be understood by every recipient.
Teresa Wontor-Cichy, historian from the Research Center and Agnieszka Sieradzka, curator of the Collections, discuss the art created at Auschwitz.
We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
We also recommend our online lesson about art at Auschwitz: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_18_sztuka/
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 revolt among the prisoners.
We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
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 operators, stenographers and telephone operators; the last group consisted of nurses.
Dr. Sylwia Wysińska from the Archives of the Museum talks about the women supervivors at Auschwitz
We wish to thank Jonathan Jetter from the Right Angle Productions & Brooke Stocken for their help in production of the English version of the podcast.
(picture: Maria Mandl as a defendant in a trail in 1947)
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 prisoners from the Penal Company
-) tragic events in the women's penal company
-) mass escape of Soviet prisoners of war
-) cases of desperate resistance in the dismantling room of a gas chamber.
Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, tells the story of different cases or organized resistance at Auschwitz.
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 Höss, which probably saved her life. Her duties included shopping and cooking, and sometimes taking care of the commandant's children.
Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre tells about the story of Sophie Stippel.
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.
Dr. Jacek Lachendro, deputy head of the Museum's Research Center, talks about the looting process at Auschwitz.
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 camp manager Karl Fritzch was recalled by Jan Karcz in his memoirs.
Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Museum Research Center talks about the first moments at Auschwitz, when deportees came into contact with the world of death, terror and dehumanization, as well as factors that could help surviving the camp.
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 prisoners of war also operated there from spring to autumn of that year. A similar camp existed at the former Birkenau camp until early 1946. Commissions investigating the crimes committed by Nazi Germany at Auschwitz also began to work at the site of the former camp.
At the same time, survivors began to make efforts to establish an institution at the site of the former camp to commemorate the victims.
Dr Jacek Lachendro, from the Museum Research Centre, talks about the process that led to the creation of the Auschwitz Memorial in 1947.
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 attempt to transfer 30 women prisoners - Jehovah's Witnesses - from Ravensbrück to Auschwitz, who were to be employed as domestic helpers in the homes of SS men. Listen to Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum talking about this set of documents.
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 Setkiewicz, the head of the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum talks about the issue of bombing the camp.
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 employed at the mines in Libiąż and Jaworzno, where Auschwitz sub-camps were later established. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre, talks about the history of British POWs near the Auschwitz camp.
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 Auschwitz: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_11_wyzwolenie/
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 Auschwitz.
See also our online lesson about evacuation, liquidation and liberation of Auschwitz: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_11_wyzwolenie/
In the picture: Mieczysław Kościelniak, burning of documents
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, where they were subjected to racial screening. Those who, according to German criteria, were not "racially valuable" were planned to be deported to concentration camps.
A total 1,301 people, including at least 162 children were deported to Auschwitz in three transports
Dr Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre talks about the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Germans in the Zamość region and the fate of the inhabitants of this region deported to Auschwitz.
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In the picture: a family photo of Jan and Aniela Malec (Jan - the younger man sitting in the middle). Their children were taken away from them in the Zamość camp. Jan and Aniela were deported to Auschwitz, where they both died in a short time (Jan in March and Aniela in April 1943), orphaning four daughters aged 4-13. The girls were deported from the Zamość camp to Siedlce, where they survived the war.
See also our online lesson about this topic: https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/dep_zam_PL/
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 Ronald S. Lauder, Chairman of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation—“is a story of hope and triumph of the human spirit.” Over 110 recipes accompanied by survivors’ pre-war recollections and post-liberation memories weave a unique tapestry of sensory experiences of flavors and aromas from the old world, accounts of loss and trauma, as well as heartwarming and poignant tales of new beginnings and healing. All of the recipes have been tested and retested to make sure they can be replicated in your kitchen while keeping the original character and voice of the survivors who contributed to the volume."
The book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Honey-Cake-Latkes-Auschwitz-Birkenau-Survivors/dp/1595911235
All proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation.
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. Later, other orchestras were also established in the men's and women's camps at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, as well as in some of the sub-camps. Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Memorial Research Centre talks about the history of orchestras in Auschwitz.
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 podcast.
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 instead of a desperate selected prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek (np. 5659). After a brief dispute with Father Kolbe, Fritzch agreed to the substitution, especially when he found out that Kolbe is a Catholic priest. The 10 selected prisoners were led off to Block 11. In the Bunker Register the admission of them is noted without listing names, numbers, day of admission or day of death.
Franciszek Gajowniczek survived the war and died in 1995.
Maksymilian Kolbe was murdered with a poisonous injection on 14 August 1941. He was canonized by pope John Paul II in October 1982.
Teresa Wontor Cichy from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about Father Maksymilian Kolbe.
The Germans incarcerated at least 464 priests, seminarians & monks as well as 35 nuns in #Auschwitz. Learn about the fate of Christian clergy and religious life in the camp: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_18_duchowienstwo/
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 criminals, etc.), photographs, microfilms, negatives, documentary films, scholarly studies, reviews, lectures, exhibition scenarios, film scripts, and research results.
Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Archives, talks about the activity of this part of the Museum.
The document in the picture is one of the first plans of the main Auschwitz camp from mid-1940.
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 picture: gas chamber and crematorium IV at Auschwitz that was set on fire by Sonderkommando prisoners during the revolt.
“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 books with memoirs of survivors of the German Nazi camp Auschwitz and extensive hitherto unpublished archival material containing their accounts. On this basis, he presented an in-depth reflection on the condition of people subjected to the process of turning into prisoners of the concentration camp.
Listen to the interview with Dr. Piotr Cywiński about the book in the podcast.
Buy the book “Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human” in our online bookstore.
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 our online lesson: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/2021-zaloga-en/
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 armaments and extractive industries, or agriculture. At the beginning of 1945, they held 35,000 men and women prisoners, more than Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau combined (31,000).
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Memorial research center talks about the history of Auschwitz sub-camps.
(in the picture: Trzebinia sub-camp)
Activities by the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in the Third Reich in 1933 because of the Witnesses’ religious principles and pacifistic views, as well as their organization’s international connections. As a result, many of them were imprisoned in concentration camps.
Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about the history and fate of some 400 Jehovah’s Witnesses incarcerated in the camp.
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In the picture:
A German Jehovah’s Witness Marta Proppe born on 26 December 1899
In #Auschwitz from 12 November 1942 No. 24418
She was transferred to KL Gross-Rosen. She survived.
The historians of the Memorial today estimate, that the Germans murdered around 1,1 million out of 1,3 million people deported to Auschwitz.
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, talks about the history of research on the number of Auschwitz victims.
The fate children who were registered in Auschwitz as prisoners was no different in principle from that of adults. Just like them, they suffered from hunger and cold, were used as laborers, and were punished, put to death, and used as subjects in criminal experiments by SS doctors.
Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka from Memorial’s Research Center talks about the Auschwitz camp through the eyes of a child.
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Listen also to the podcast "Children in Auschwitz": https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-8-Children-at-Auschwitz-e16t4gh
Two extremely important factors in the exhaustion, deprivation and destruction of prisoners at Auschwitz were hunger and hard slave labour.
Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre talks in our podcast about this aspect of the camp's functioning.
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Listen also to the podcast about living and sanitary conditions as well as camp clothing: https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-10-Living-and-sanitary-conditions-as-well-as-camp-clothing-at-Auschwitz-e18dcik
One of the darkest chapters of the history of Auschwitz is undoubtedly the story of the Sonderkommando - a group of prisoners, mainly Jews - forced by the Germans to work in gas chambers and crematoria of the camp.
Prisoners assigned to this unit, employed in places of mass extermination, could not refuse to do their work or ask to be transferred to perform other tasks in the camp. Failure to carry out the instructions of the SS would result in immediate death.
Dr. Igor Bartosik from the Research Center of the Memorial talks about the fate of Sonderkommando prisoners.
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Listen also to our podcast about the first crematorium and the beginnings of the Sonderkommando: https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-6-the-first-crematorium-and-the-Sonderkommando-in-Auschwitz-e14rnsj
During its entire existence, slightly over 400 thousand people were registered at Auschwitz as prisoners - including 131 thousand women. The two largest groups of prisoners were Jews - about 200 thousand - and Poles, some 140 thousand.
Since Germans established the camp in spring 1940 with the members of Polish resistance and intelligentsia in mind, Poles dominated in the camp at first. This situation began to change in March 1942, when mass deportations of Jews for extermination began.
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center, talks about the situation of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the camp.
The term "sport" in KL Auschwitz was distorted by using it to refer to the exhausting exercises combined with the drill and singing applied on a mass scale. This form of sport, referred to after the war as pseudo-sport, was usually a way of enforcing discipline and punishing prisoners.
However, among people deported by the Germans to Auschwitz, there were pre-war sportsmen and sportswomen: Olympians and national champions. Some prisoners had also the opportunity to practice some sports in the camp. These included wrestling and boxing, as well as games such as soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Mind sports were also popular among prisoners, particularly chess, but also card games.
Renata Koszyk, an educator at the Auschwitz Memorial and curator of the exhibition dedicated to this topic, talks about sport and sportspeople in Auschwitz.
The horrible living conditions created by the SS authorities in the block and barracks in all parts of the Auschwitz complex as well as the appalling sanitary conditions contributed to the exhaustion and death of many prisoners. The clothing which was completely inadequate for the weather conditions also had negative effect on the condition and health of the prisoners.
Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about the living and sanitary conditions and types of camp clothing.
The Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp was established in October 1942 on the site of the displaced and expelled Polish village of Monowice, located 6 km from the Auschwitz I camp. It was connected with the construction of the synthetic rubber and fuel plant by a German chemical company IG Farbenindustrie.
Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Memorial Research Center, talks about the history of the third part of the Auschwitz camp complex.
You can also listen to "On Auschwitz" (4) that explains the role of the German company IG Farbenindustrie in the expansion of Auschwitz, creation of Birkenau & why in March 1942 the concentration camp became also an extermination center for Jewish people: https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-4-Transformation-of-Auschwitz-concentration-camp-into-an-extermination-center-e13bat2
Using only estimates based on the examination of the existing incomplete documentation, it can only be acknowledged that there were around 232,000 children aged under 15 and youth aged under 18 among the at least 1.3 million people deported to the German Nazi Auschwitz camp during the almost 5-year period of its operation. This number includes around 216,000 children and youth of Jewish origin, 11,000 Roma and Sinti, at least 3000 Polish, and over 1000 Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian and other children and youth. The number of children registered as prisoners in the first years of operation of Auschwitz was low, but it steadily increased to reach a maximum in the latter half of 1944.
Dr Wanda Witek Malicka from the Memorial’s Research Center talks about the fate of children in Auschwitz.
At least 23,000 Roma and Sinti people - including 11 thousand children were deported by the Nazi German regime to Auschwitz. After the Jews and Poles they are the third largest groups of the victims of the camp.
The vast majority lost their lives as a result of hunger, brutal treatment, pseudo-medical experiments or were murdered in gas chambers. According to the documentation over 91 percent of the Roma deported to Auschwitz were murdered in the camp
I spoke to Teresa Wontor Cichy from the Research Center of the Memorial about the fate of Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz.
From the beginning of the existence of the German Auschwitz camp, the bodies of murdered prisoners were incinerated. The first crematorium on the grounds of the camp was opened in August 1940 and, of course, prisoners of the camp had to work there. The situation of this work group changed when the killing of people in gas chambers began in the camp. The Sonderkommando was then formed. Paweł Sawicki spoke to Dr. Igor Bartosik of the Memorial Research Centre about the beginnings of this special work unit.
A particularly drastic example of betrayal of medical ethics is the participation of many German doctors in the criminal pseudo-medical experiments carried out on concentration camp prisoners. Paweł Sawicki spoke to Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Memorial Research Centre about the experiments conducted in Auschwitz.
In planning the construction of Auschwitz, the Germans assumed that the camp would eventually hold some 30,000 prisoners. As late as the beginning of 1941, there were no indications that, over the next few months, both the plans for employment and the number of prisoners, as well as the function of the camp itself, would change dramatically. In this podcast we talk about the role played by the German chemical company IG Farbenindustrie in the expansion of the camp, why the Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Auschwitz III-Monowitz camps were established and why the expanding Auschwitz concentration camp also became an extermination camp for Jews in March 1942.
Recent years have seen an increased interest among writers in the subject of Auschwitz. Their books are set in the realities of the camp - with very mixed results. Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka talks to Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Research Center of the Memorial about whether it is worth reaching for these books and how to distinguish between valuable and less valuable literature.
The Auschwitz camp complex had an extensive organizational structure, which also included a separate department responsible for protecting the health of both the SS garrison and - at least in theory - the prisoners of the camp. Paweł Sawicki talks about medicine in Auschwitz with Teresa Wontor-Cichy, a historian at the Research Center of the Auschwitz Memorial.
The German Nazi Auschwitz camp was established by the SS in the occupied city of Oświęcim, on the Polish territory annexed by the Third Reich at the beginning of World War II. Paweł Sawicki talks to Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Museum Research Center, about the details of the decision-making process which led to the creation of the camp and about its first prisoners.
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.