HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS LINKED
TO WW2 TRANSFERRED TO MEMORIAL INSTITUTIONS WITH THE SUPPORT
OF THE AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU FOUNDATION
Auschwitz Memorial
On 23 October, a ceremony was held at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Warsaw to transfer historical documents related, among other subjects, to the Second World War, the Holocaust, and German Nazi concentration camps. The documents were secured by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation through international cooperation following the cancellation of a controversial auction in Germany in November last year.
A collection of documents relating to the history of the Auschwitz, including prisoner correspondence from different periods of its operation, was transferred to the Museum Archives. Among the oldest materials is a document sent on 17 December 1940 by Jan Sworzeń, prisoner no. 56, who was deported to Auschwitz in the first transport of Polish political prisoners on 14 June 1940. It is a printed notice to his family concerning the rules for sending Christmas parcels. Jan Sworzeń died in the camp on 6 January 1943.
The collection also includes an extensive handwritten manuscript by Arthur Liebehenschel, commandant of Auschwitz in 1943–44. The document was created in 1947 during his imprisonment in Poland, in connection with preparations for his trial before the Supreme National Tribunal. The notes, bearing his handwritten signature, constitute an important source for research into the functioning of the camp and the responsibility of its perpetrators.
Other materials connected with the history of Auschwitz include prisoners’ letters, family correspondence, documents concerning the sending of parcels and money, as well as death notifications. Particularly important are those sources that reveal the individual fates of people whose stories have often survived only in fragments within camp documentation.
“Behind every document lies the tragedy of a particular person, sometimes of a group of people. Each of these stories forms part of the greatest tragedy in the history of Europe. We cannot allow the fates of individual people to remain outside the historical, archival and scholarly legacy, to end up in collectors’ drawers, private storage spaces or amateur files. When that happens, from the perspective of the Shoah as a whole and the history of the camps, the actual presence of a particular Victim disappears,” emphasized Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz Museum.
The event in Warsaw was attended by Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska; Nathanael Liminski, Minister for Federal and European Affairs, International Relations and Media of North Rhine-Westphalia; Wojciech Soczewica, Director General of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation; as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps, museums, archives and memorial institutions.
“Documents are becoming increasingly important witnesses to history, and it is on them that we must base a responsible policy of remembrance. A policy that protects authentic sources, ensures the conditions for independent research, and allows us to understand the past in all its complexity,” said Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska.
“Behind every document stands a human being. Someone who had a family, someone who had plans and dreams, someone who loved, who longed for others, who feared for those closest to them. Someone whose normal life was taken away by the war, and often their future as well,” she added.
“At a time when disinformation and the manipulation of facts are becoming an increasingly serious threat, including to the memory of the Second World War, the Holocaust and the crimes of totalitarian regimes, our response must be strong institutions of remembrance, professional archives, the digitization of collections, historical education and international cooperation,” Minister Cienkowska said.
“We cannot rely every time solely on public protests, the goodwill of donors and extraordinary rescue efforts. That is why today I am appealing to all individuals and institutions in possession of camp documents, prisoners’ correspondence, testimonies of life in the ghettos, or personal belongings of victims of persecution: entrust them to museums, archives and memorial sites. Give historians the opportunity to study them, and future generations the opportunity to learn the stories preserved within them,” she emphasized.
In addition to the Auschwitz Museum, recipients of the documents included the State Museum at Majdanek, the Stutthof Museum in Sztutowo, the Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica, the Treblinka Museum, the Pawiak Prison Museum, the Museum of the Martyrdom of Greater Poland – Fort VII, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, the Katyn Museum in Warsaw and the Central Museum of Prisoners of War.
Documents were also transferred to the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute and the State Archive in Łódź.
he scope of the initiative extends beyond Poland. Recipients also included the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, as well as the embassies of the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania and the Netherlands in Poland. The materials concern, among other subjects, the history of the Theresienstadt ghetto, the Westerbork and Amersfoort camps, the persecution of Jews in Hungary, and the occupation of Lithuanian territories.
Some Auschwitz-related documents were transferred to other institutions. The Central Museum of Prisoners of War received, among other items, a card sent in November 1943 from Oflag XVII A to a Polish internee in Switzerland. In it, the sender asked for help for a woman imprisoned in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, providing her prisoner number and the camp address.
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