At Auschwitz a system of punishments was in place for prisoners who broke camp regulations. In addition to official penalties, SS garrison members and functionary prisoners also imposed so-called unofficial punishments. Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Research Center at the Auschwitz Museum, explains the types of punishments and the offenses for which men and women prisoners could be punished.
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Voiceover: Tom Vamos, Mike Skagerlind
The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, established as a result of the efforts of Auschwitz Survivors, has been operating at the Memorial since 2005. The Museum director Dr. Piotr Cywiński and Education Center director Andrzej Kacorzyk discuss what education at the Memorial looks like today and what challenges it faces in the context of modern times.
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Voiceover: Greg Littlefield, Grey Stafford
Education at the Auschwitz Memorial has been carried out since the Museum was established in 1947, and the first guides were Survivors who told visitors about the tragic history of the camp from their personal perspective. It was due to the efforts of the Survivors that the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust was established in 2005. Krystyna Oleksy, the first director of the Education Center, discusses its beginnings, the first educational projects, and significant challenges.
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Voiceover: Mary Castillo, Calum Melville
Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code criminalized homosexual contacts between men. One possible punishment was imprisonment in a concentration camp. Also at Auschwitz, there was a small group of men convicted of homosexuality. Dr. Agnieszka Kita, deputy head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives, talks about the persecution of homosexual men in Nazi Germany and the postwar memory of their fate.
English voiceover: Kate Weinrieb
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Our online lesson about this group of prisoners of Auschwitz by Bogdan Piętka from the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum.
On June 14, 1940, the Germans deported a group of 728 Poles from a prison in Tarnow to Auschwitz. Among them were soldiers of the September campaign, members ofunderground independence organizations, high school and university students, as well as a small group of Polish Jews. They were registered with nos. from 31 to 758. The podcast "On Auschwitz" presents fragments of testimonies of:- Kazimierz Albin,
- Jan Baraś-Komski,
- Zbigniew Bentkowski,
- Włodzimierz Borkowski,
- Edward Ferenc,
- Adam Jurkiewicz,
- Stanisław Maliński,
- Eugeniusz Niedojadło,
- Wiktor Pasikowski,
- Tadeusz Pietrzykowski,
- Bronisław Wajda,
- Alfred Wilk
- Stanisław Zyguła.
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See also our online lesson about this topic:http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_17_deportacje/
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Voiceovers:Tom Vamos, Greg Littlefield, Grey Stanford, Mike Skagerlind, Michael Takiff, Toon Dressen
Block 10 at the Auschwitz I camp was the so-called experimental block. SS doctors conducted medical experiments there, including those focused on sterilization. Why was this particular block chosen for such experiments, who were the doctors working there, and what happened to their victims? These questions are explored by Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Research Center of the Museum.
Voiceover: Therese McLaughlin
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On-line lesson about medical crimes at Auschwitz: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/2022_medycyna_en/
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
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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.
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.
