"On Auschwitz" (48): Good examples of literature dedicated to the history of Auschwitz camp.
On AuschwitzShow Notes
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.
More from On Auschwitz
A collection of letters and documents related to Jan Nowak, a physician from Kraków who, as a prisoner of German Nazi concentration camps, worked in camp hospitals and helped other prisoners, has been donated to the Auschwitz Museum Archives. The documents, including a letter sent from the camp and seven letters sent to the camp by his relatives, were donated to the Archives by Marek Trybulski, owner of the Kraków Numismatic Salon. We invite you to listen to a conversation with the donor and Dr Wojciech Płosa, head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives. ===== Voiceovers: Mike Skagerlind, Grey Stafford and Michael Takiff
A special group of prisoners in the Auschwitz camp were prisoner functionaries, responsible, among other things, for maintaining discipline among prisoners, keeping order in the blocks, and supervising the work being carried out. Dr Wojciech Płosa, Head of the Auschwitz Museum Archive, talks about the first thirty functionary prisoners – Germans brought to Auschwitz on 20 May 1940 and assigned numbers from 1 to 30. ===== Voiceovers: Kate Weinrieb, Tom Vamos
Over the nearly five years of the operation of the Auschwitz camp, around 8,200 SS men and 200 SS female overseers served there. Dr Agnieszka Kita, Deputy Head of theAuschwitz Museum Archive, talks about what their leisure time looked like, what they did after duty, when they returned to the barracks, and what their days off looked like. =====Voiceovers: Sarah Edwards Weinstein, Kate Weinrieb
Among the unique artifacts held in the collections of the Auschwitz Memorial are fairy tales created while the camp was in operation. Crafted out of a heartfelt need, and in the hope of leaving behind a trace of their authors, these stories were smuggled out the camp. Their creators were prisoners employed in the camp’s Construction Office. With the help of people on the outside, they passed these fairy tales on to their loved ones. The story behind the fairy tales from Auschwitz is told by Jadwiga Kulasza, a retired employee of the Memorial Archives, as well as family members of the authors: Felicjan Świerczyna, son of Bernard Świerczyna, and Andrzej Czulda, son of Henryk Czulda.=====Voiceovers: Greg Littlefield, Michael Takiff, Kate Weinrieb
We discussed the group of functionary prisoners at Auschwitz in one of our previous podcasts. You can find it at: podcast.auschwitz.org. In this episode Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives will talk about the post war fates of some of the functionary prisoners. ===== Artwork: Mieczysław Kościelniak, Praca przy walcu (Working on the roller), Auschwitz Memorial Collectons. ===== Voiceover: Therese Mc Laughlin, Mike Skagerlind