The former security guard from Auschwitz sentenced – Polish Radio

The area of ​​the former Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz Photo: xiquinhosilva / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

– They are in most recent personal things that has managed to keep the Jews driven immediately after the selection of the ramp to the gas chambers. They include thermometers, bottles, drugs, or perfumes, fragments of shoes, jewelry, watches, brushes, pipes, lighters, fragments of dishes, buttons, pocket knives, keys, and many other items – said Pawel Sawicki of the press office of the Museum.

Museum workers underlined that finding the object was not an easy task. – In 1967. On the site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Andrzej Brzozowski completed short documentary “Archaeology”, which revealed the course of excavation work near the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium III – said the head of the museum collections department Elizabeth Cajzer.

– As a result, found a very large number of original objects from the period of the camp. To the museum it went just over 400 of them. But we were convinced that there must have been much more. We started to look for them – she added.

Museum workers have decided to recover the rest of the items. Museum director Piotr M.A.Cywiński said the investigation began several months of verification of archival documentation. Checked tore up the tracks. The search difficult by the fact that many employees remember the survey of 1967. Already gone.

– He’s dead already filmmaker, realizing it changed institutions and archives silent. However, we checked in detail each topic, though we could not have even sure whether the items unearthed during archaeological work are not undermined or scattered. It had been, after almost 50 years, and we must remember that Polish institutions have undergone profound change after the fall of communism. We were hoping with every possibility – said the director of Cywiński.

48 cartons of items in a pan

Cajzer added that she managed to make contact with the last living participants of project years ago.

– It was not clear where they were deposited items found during the film. It turned out that they are stored in cartons 48 in a building Polish Academy of Sciences. What is very important for the process of documentation and determine their authenticity, the vast majority of them the whole time was described in individual containers indicating, among others, a place to find that precise data on the subject – indicated Cajzer.

Director Cywiński admitted that he did not expect that, after almost half a century as a huge collection of finds in its entirety. – It’s like finding the lost treasure of the galleon – he added.

Why discovery hit the boxes to the PAN? – I can only try to imagine – said the director.

– The excavations were carried out in autumn 1967. In the vicinity of the gas chambers and crematoria. Probably they have to be analyzed and developed, perhaps even someone was going to write an extensive research work on the subject. It is in fact set in each part unique. Meanwhile, a few months later there was a political turn in 1968 and the communist government took a clearly anti-Semitic course. Probably because not spieszono to the implementation and completion of the entire project. For topics related to the Holocaust then came the hard times – says Cywiński.

All historical objects have already found to Auschwitz, where he will soon be zdokumentowane and checked for conservation status. Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation has already decided to launch emergency funding for any maintenance work on these objects.

Germany established Auschwitz in 1940. To imprison him Poles. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was established two years later. It became a place of extermination of the Jews. In the camp complex it functioned as a network of sub-camps. In Auschwitz, the Germans killed at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners and people of other nationalities.

In 1947. On the site of the former Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau a museum. Last year, visited by more than 1.72 million people. The former camp in 1979. Was listed as the only one of its kind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

IAR / PAP is