An Insight into the History of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp
Our presentations and workshops provide an engaging and well-founded introduction to the history of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the one hand, we examine the moving individual fates of prisoners, reconstructed from carefully analysed camp documents. On the other, we explore the complex structures and procedures of the camp’s bureaucratic machinery.
Original documents are presented as high-quality scans that reveal not only their content but also their physical condition, including the surface and colour of entries, creating an authentic experience. During the presentations, we highlight key information and interpret it in its historical context in order to promote deeper understanding.
Prisoners’ stories are brought to life through a wide variety of documents: admission lists, prisoner strength books, bunker records, prisoner photographs and other surviving material enable us to reconstruct individual lives in compelling detail. Testimonies from former prisoners and eyewitnesses add a personal and emotional dimension to the events. Historical photographs, drawings and contemporary images complement the presentations.
The perspective of the perpetrators is also examined to provide a comprehensive picture of camp reality.
Our presentations and workshops are an ideal complement to a standard or extended study programme during a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. They help the material remain in participants’ memories and encourage deeper engagement with this difficult chapter of history.
Multimedia presentations, also available online, lasting approximately 90 minutes:
- The moving fate of young prisoners, illustrated by the apprentices of the “Masonry School” in the Auschwitz main camp
- The life stories of prisoners from Block 4 in the Auschwitz main camp
- Escape attempts from the camp – courage and desperation
- The unknown Auschwitz – three powerful stories: a prisoner from the first transport of Poles, the “career” of an SS-Unterscharführer, and the tragic love story of Edek and Mala, the “Romeo and Juliet of Auschwitz”
- Block 11 – the notorious “Death Block” in the main camp
- Female SS guards in the Auschwitz-Birkenau women’s camp – behind the scenes
- Prisoner infirmaries – medical care and suffering in the camp
- The exploitation of prisoners’ artistic and intellectual abilities
- Families in Auschwitz-Birkenau – solidarity under the most difficult conditions
- Heroic attitudes – courage and humanity in the camp
- Artistic creation despite oppression – artists in Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Criminal medical experiments and their victims
- Children in Auschwitz-Birkenau – a lost generation
- Sinti and Roma in the camp – documentation and remembrance
- Austrians in Auschwitz-Birkenau – victims and perpetrators
- The bureaucratic thoroughness of the SS camp administration, examined through surviving documents
- People in the prisoner infirmary, illustrated by Block 28
- “Ordinary” people – the conduct of the SS at Auschwitz-Birkenau
- The final days of Auschwitz-Birkenau and evacuation transports to Mauthausen
- The beginnings and the end of the concentration and extermination camp
- Faces of love in Auschwitz-Birkenau
- The liberation of the camp – hope and a new beginning
- Resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau – courage in the face of inhumanity
On-site workshops at the Auschwitz Memorial, for groups of up to 30 people, lasting approximately 90 minutes:
- Sinti and Roma in Auschwitz-Birkenau – history and remembrance
- The fate of young prisoners, illustrated by apprentices of the “Masonry School” in the main camp
- The lives of prisoners from Block 4 in the Auschwitz main camp
- Children in Auschwitz-Birkenau – a sensitive examination
- People in the prisoner infirmary, illustrated by Block 28
- The “career” of an SS-Unterscharführer – a perpetrator’s biography
- Sonderkommando prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau – a dark reality
- Criminal medical experiments and their consequences
- “Ordinary” people – the conduct of the SS in the camp
- Artists and musicians in Auschwitz – creativity as a survival strategy
- From document to narrative – reconstructing individual fates
- Faces of love – between hope and suffering
- Heroic attitudes – courageous people in the camp
- Resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau – forms and examples
