Good examples of literature about the history of Auschwitz

Transcript of the podcast

The first publications of the subject of Auschwitz were published during the war while the camp was still in the operation. The immediate post war years also abounded a numerous publications by witnesses, the survivors of this 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.

In recent years, the publishing market has been flooded with publications inspired by the history of Auschwitz, I deliberately use the word “inspiration” here, because despite the fact that the covers often contain information that the publications are based on facts, usually the accuracy refers only to the location and some of the figures. The publications have little in common with the real events. Why do people generally assume that all the books are supposed to spread the knowledge or reveal authentic realities?

To answer this question, we should probably have to go back a bit in time to draw attention to two factors: The first is the symbolism of Auschwitz and its social perception. Auschwitz and the events that took place here had been seen by people for years as something unique, as a crime without precedent, but at the same time, the camp was considered an almost sacred symbol. Auschwitz, with its symbolism, was supposedly regarded in the sphere of the sacred, as evidenced by the fact that when we review the Polish press of the post-war period and a bit later, the visitors to the museum were often described as “pilgrims”. This is proof of a kind of bonding of history with a certain sphere of spirituality. Because of what happened here, Auschwitz itself required a particular, far-reaching respect and also delicacy, understanding, and to a large extent there was no such social consent to speak about Auschwitz differently than seriously, with respect, with integrity, as one should speak about it. This place is closely related to death, and all this, all the cultural taboos on death, were somehow translated into Auschwitz. Therefore, it was a topic that should not be joked about, that could not be trivialized, in which one could not afford to apply any kind of weak narrative, and it functioned for many post-war years. For instance, regarding the history of memorial publications and what happened to false diaries, here is the example of Misha Defonseca, also Binjamin Wiłkomirski: when it turned out that their memories of the Holocaust were not authentic, they were somehow ostracized. Perhaps Vilkomirskyi to a lesser extent, but Defonseca, apart from the fact that she was then stigmatized as a person who cheated, to this day, when we enter Wikipedia, it states: “Belgian writer, comma, con artist, comma, author of false memories”, so this word “con artist” appears as something already belonging to her because of this one book. This shows the extension of the lack of acceptance towards fraud, and lies about Auschwitz, against those who turn the tragedy of the victims into some financial gain. Because the publishing process is always associated with financial issues, with payment to the author, so in the past such practices were unthinkable. Today, I think that this agreement even expanded, as well as the public awareness that Auschwitz is something special and that Auschwitz should be associated with the reliability of the approach, that a writer who embraces this subject is obliged to be reliable, but also for sure have some principles, let us say ideological: preserving memory, showing the truth. And we, the society, still believe in it. Therefore, if Auschwitz appears in the title, we are inclined to attribute all these noble motivations to the author. The second reason for this is a certain publishing practice. If we look at the publishing market or bibliography concerning the Auschwitz camp during the post-war years, then in fact most of these texts were written first by survivors – not only memoirs but various articles, and analyses. They were written by people who, with their personal experience, assured here about the reliability of this text. Auschwitz was a topic taken up by researchers on the other hand, primarily at the beginning by historians and medical doctors, and later also representatives of various other fields of science, but they were specialists who had a certain workshop, a certain methodology, and approached this topic in a scientific, research way. Later, more and more publications appeared, various types of reportage, publications on the verge of non-fiction literature, but still very reliable publications, publications based on conversations with survivors, whose authors paid attention to the fact that the events described in these publications are actually true, so the reader is somewhat accustomed to the fact that this should be done in any literature, whether scientific or fiction, that this is the way Auschwitz should be dealt with. The readers have missed the moment when authors who are less and less connected historically, biographically, and through generations with the experience of Auschwitz do not fully feel the burden of responsibility that rests on them and feel the need for such far-reaching reliability. But we, readers, still believe that is the case. Therefore, it seems to me that these are the main reasons why every item that has “Auschwitz” in its title will be accepted primarily as a position from which we will learn something of historical knowledge.

Most of non-professional readers instead of searching for a scientific study, will rather reach for a position written in an accessible language, as it is more popular. What can we suggest and recommend to people who are interested in the subject of Auschwitz?

I would start with the fact that I perfectly understand readers who do not want to reach for bulky historical volumes, monographic books, or thick editions because they can be repulsive. It happens that such studies are written in kind of hermetic language. They besides contain a completely different narrative. I understand that we also reach for literature for purposes, well here the word „entertainment” is always very inappropriate for this topic, we want this literature to move our emotions, and teach us something, and we do not want to collide with the wall of scientific vocabulary, through which we will not be able to get through. So, for me, it is understandable that readers tend to read novels rather than just scientific studies. But I would suggest here as the best alternative the memoirs of survivors. What is important, these memoirs were actually published since 1942, so also during the war. Some studies did not have, well, historical, and scientific character, but were supposed to reach people, to show them what was going on in Auschwitz. The first two books that appeared were ”The Prisoner’s Diary” by Halina Krahelska and „The Death Camp” by Natalia Zarembina. These are quite exceptional publications, because, as I mentioned, they were published in 1942 and appeared in Warsaw in the form of newsletters distributed clandestinely, they were not, of course, official, not signed with the names of the authors and written based on interviews of these women with survivors released from the camp. Therefore, despite the fact that the author here is, for example, Halina Krahelska, the narrative is conducted from the position of a man, because in 1942, when she wrote these accounts, there was no women’s camp yet. This publication confronts us with the experience of a prisoner, a young man who came out of the camp. Here, the author used a very clever and safe trick, namely at the end of the narrative, this prisoner supposedly dies, in order to protect her informants from the investigation, or those who provided this information from being pursued. These publications, published during the war, are a fantastic source of knowledge and show what the people of that time knew about Auschwitz, and what they could have known. These books are currently available on the market, although it seems to me that generally on the secondary market, you can look for them on auction portals. Certainly, Natalia Zarembina’s „The Death Camp” was published in the form of a reprint, not only in this Polish edition, but also in other languages. Halina Krahelska’s text „The Prisoner’s Diary” has appeared in various publications, certainly in one of the issues of “Więź”. I have the impression that it was also published in Bartoszewski's book “My Auschwitz”, but certainly in this book appeared also the text by Zofia Kossak and the text by Augustyn Mańkowski, the father Augustyn, because it is not signed with a surname. The memoirs of the father Augustyn were published in 1945, shortly after the war. They are extremely valuable because the text of father Augustine entitled „Behind the wires of the Auschwitz concentration Camp” is a unique work. After all, the author was in the camp for the entire period of its existence from 1940, until the liberation and these memories were written on the spot and were published in 1945 already, so practically immediately after the end of the war. In the memoires the narrative is conducted not first-person from the perspective of a specific prisoner, but it is like a description of an observer, while certainly, the person writing is a survivor, although in some way he hides his experience behind this narrative, but actually a lot of interesting information can be found out. First, we can learn from this book how the people in this time referred to, thought and wrote about Auschwitz. In these first post-war years, about 20 books appeared, well, it is difficult to say whether it was a lot or not. I highly recommend to those readers, who are interested in searching for these publications, to seek a book by Anna Malcówna „Bibliography of KL Auschwitz for the years 1942-1980” and the chapter thereof entitled „Documents, source publications, accounts, and memoirs” where all these names, titles, authors can be found. However, I would like to point out immediately that despite the fact that Anna Malcówna did a great job here and listed these books or publications – and not only books, but also press articles, she mentioned almost 200 of them, well, it is not such a complete list. It is obvious that it probably did not contain certain publications. As far as foreign publications are concerned, these include mainly compact publications and, to a lesser extent press articles. She lists the books that were published in the first post-war years, that is, say, until the 1950s , there were about 20 of them. Such a recommendable position is certainly the one by Filip Friedman “This is Oświęcim”, which appeared already in 1945, while a year later the book was released in the form also extended by the text of Tadeusz Hołuj “Oświęcim”. This is a very interesting piece, especially for researchers of the era, when we consider how the political themes of 1946 in relation to Auschwitz were included, since Tadeusz Hołuj wrote here a lot about the camp conspiracy, but still, it should be remembered that this was the narrative of that time. Among such very important books that were published in the first post-war years was the work of Miklos Nyiszli, we know it under the title “I was an assistant to Dr. Mengele”, released in Poland in the 60s, but originally, under the title which I will not pronounce because it is in the Hungarian, it appeared in 1947, also shortly after the war. The memories of Miklos Nyiszli have been re-issued many times over the years, so there is no problem to reach them. They were unique because Miklos Nyiszli was a member of the Sonderkommando, was forced to cooperate with Dr. Mengele, to carry out autopsies at his command. He described his camp experience, not only as his camp experience, but also the fate of his daughter and wife, who were sent to one of the transit camps. However, this book tells a lot not only about the history of Sonderkommando, but also about the relations between prisoners, about attempts to save their loved ones. In the first post-war years, texts of women authors were published and already considered classic and very important. The basic one seems to me to be Seweryna Szmaglewska’s novel “Smoke over Birkenau”, published in 1945. The importance of this publication may be confirmed by the fact that it was included as evidence in the trials against war criminals, and therefore the information contained therein was indeed considered important and very reliable. I highly recommend Seweryna Szmaglewska’s work, but not only the “Smoke over Birkenau”, but also the other texts by this author in a more fictionalized form. Seweryna Szmaglewska is also the author of such books as „Scream of the Wind” or „It will be a Beautiful Day” describing her camp experiences and certainly, although these are books that have a more fictionalized form, I have also read about them as “literary documents”, which also proves the value they have; these are books written in a very accessible language and therefore I think, being attractive to the reader. The same author also wrote the book “Innocents in Nuremberg”, because she was a witness in the Nuremberg trials, so the book results of this experience and I think it is also worth looking at. However, speaking again about the classic or important books that appeared in the first post-war years and were written by women, one cannot fail to mention Krystyna Żywulska’s „I survived Auschwitz”. Żywulska’s experience is unique because she was in the camp as a Polish prisoner. She was not identified there as a Jewish woman and she managed to survive. Her book belongs to a canon of camp literature. It was also re-published many times after the war, so if anyone is looking for the original or the first editions from 1946, well, they are quite expensive, but I think that every interested reader can reach such a publication from the following years. Another book that was certainly important, although a reservation must be made regarding this text, was Zofia Kossak’s book “From the Abyss”, which was also published already in 1946. Zofia Kossak was a writer, so here the workshop is an obvious matter and this book reads well, but you have to bear in mind that its perspective is strongly Christian, you can see some such interferences or some explanations, that are not entirely correct explanations in relation to the camp realities and it is interesting that after the war, after the publication of these memories, another survivor, Tadeusz Borowski entered into a polemic with Zofia Kossak. He wrote the text “Alice in Wonderland”, which I also really recommend, but just after reading the book by Zofia Kossak, because there, he argues with certain myths that she created. He gives an example of the myth that she created such as Polish female political prisoner allegedly were the most resistant ones because their faith helped them, because they were deeply religious. This is of course a perspective of the author, but it must be remembered that first, certainly not all Polish women who were in the camp were deeply religious, and secondly, Zofia Kossak completely omits such issues, as the fact that Polish women received packages and here it was very important help, which could really decide about survival in a direct way that their conditions were often simply better, so Borowski deals with this kind of myths in his text. Among the texts of the male authors at that time, in 1946, there was also an extremely important position, a book by Tadeusz Borowski, Janusz Siedlecki and Krystyn Olszewski entitled „We were in Auschwitz”. The book is unique in terms of content, and also unique because it has an unusual literary form. We read Borowski’s novel as a required school reading, meanwhile, this is a piece of camp literature that is definitely worth reaching for. This podcast is created in opposition to the earlier one, in which we talked about literature or stories referring to the subject of Auschwitz, and somewhere in the background of this discussion there is still a question whether Auschwitz is a topic that can be fictionalized. Is Auschwitz a subject that deserves literary processing or any kind of processing in art? It seems to me that here Borowski’s book is a perfect example of the fact that, of course, the subject of the Auschwitz experience can be processed through art, but it must be done skillfully in order not to lose what is most important from this experience, and Borowski is an example, how indeed literary processing can serve this subject matter, that the reader reads it even though it is a harrowing book and indeed the descriptions contained in it are macabre moments, such as the macabre life of the camp was, but when the reader begins to read it, it is difficult to detach himself from this reading, this reading makes you think, this reading opens your eyes to certain issues related to war, to human nature, to the existence of man in the camp, and this book also deals with certain myths surrounding survivors. This is interesting because in “The Prisoner's Diary” Krahelska writes about it already, speaking through the mouth of a young prisoner, expressing that for him it is difficult or unbearable that people treat him almost as a saintly figure, as a martyr. When he compares this with what he experienced in the camp, he sees a group of unhappy, hungry, suffering people, not martyrs of the national cause. Indeed, the comparison of books by Zofia Kossak, Tadeusz Borowski, and “The Prisoner's Diary” allows the reader to see how this martyrdom narrative was conducted and how some authors tried to cope with it after the war. I would like to point out that the earlier concentration camp memoirs were written down, the better for them, because for obvious reasons the memories of survivors were still fresh then, many details or specifics had not yet slipped into areas of forgetfulness. Another issue is that at that time the books indeed contained to the highest degree what was the experience of a specific prisoner. Over time, survivors often focused on various environments among former prisoners; moreover, many of them tried to deal with their experiences or understand them by reading research literature, and historical monographs, in order to work through their own experiences. But the consequence of this was that their memories were increasingly interspersed with acquired knowledge, with factual knowledge. Over time, survivors felt somehow obliged to become experts on Auschwitz, since they were there, they should know, and they should know the exact dates. Quite often, if we read prisoner testimonies, and memoirs written down later, we see that the prisoner operates with very precise dating, precisely presents the topography, describes places that we know, that as a member of a certain work unit, he could not have been there. We know that if a prisoner was on the grounds of Auschwitz, he had little insight into what was happening in Birkenau, yet in these later memoirs, more and more of this type of information appears. This is precisely the knowledge acquired by the prisoner, the knowledge that is not his own experience. I think that definitely much more interesting and much closer, but also much more engaging for the reader, are those memoirs that are as close as possible to the experience of a former prisoner, which have the smallest character of such a history textbook, in which the prisoner does not try to somewhat act as a teacher. I have mentioned earlier that the later the texts were published, the more often precise information from the field of history appears. It is obvious that prisoners or survivors, writing down their memories, sometimes just made errors, they sometimes described events with incorrect dates, or attributed wrong names to their fellow prisoners, wrong names or spelling errors in the names of the capos, in the names of the SS men. Sometimes it happens that they include memories or stories that are not taken from their own memory, but for example are some kind of imagination, because they heard a certain story from someone else, so such things can of course occur in testimonies. However, it seems to me that despite the errors that may appear in these books, and to which we should approach with the greatest understanding, the prisoner, being in the camp, after all, did not have a watch, did not have a calendar, he could completely not know what day of the week it was, let alone what time it was, what specific date, so such errors are obvious, but what distinguishes these testimonies from those contemporary novels, which sometimes do not make mistakes in dates at all, but still present a completely unauthentic picture. They were prisoners, they described Auschwitz as it was, that is, we will not find information about the actions of prisoners that we know could not have taken place in these reports; we will not read about prisoners strolling hand in hand on Sunday afternoons on the yard in Birkenau, because these people remembered their experience and they perfectly describe such general living conditions in Auschwitz. Dates, names are issues that the reader can always check, and confirm, whether the prisoner was mistaken or not. However, for the general picture of what Auschwitz was and how a person functioned in this place, testimonies are an indispensable source, the only one that really gives us insight into it, we will not learn it from any documents, we will not learn it from any works of historians that are not based precisely on the memoirs of survivors.

If we consider that some publications, especially those released much later after the war, may contain some inaccuracies, what should we pay attention to when reading them? How can the reader consciously choose the appropriate publications?

Every publication that is an authentic account of a former prisoner is a valuable one. As I have mentioned, the shorter the time after the war it was written, the better for the content contained within. There are excellent texts from the 1950s as well, but in the 1960s, there was indeed an inundation of memoirs by survivors on the Polish publishing market, and this continued into the 1970s and even the 1980s. Often, these were memoirs that had been written shortly after the war and had been stored away in closets or attics for years until the authors gained the courage to show them to the world. These are definitely texts worth exploring. I pay close attention, when reading the accounts of former prisoners, to whether it is truly their own narrative. I mean, was it indeed a specific prisoner who took the pen in hand, or perhaps used a typewriter, or later a computer, and wrote it personally? Or is it a publication written by a journalist, writer, or third party who sat down with a former prisoner, asked them about his or her experience, and wrote it down? Here, the value is different, because every person who transforms their experience into literary form passes it through some personal filter. Survivors, of course, passed it through the filter of their needs, fears, what they could write, what they couldn't, what they experienced themselves. However, we must remember that if a ghostwriter or writer is involved in such work, they inevitably filter the text through their own feelings, beliefs, attitudes, or experiences, thus affecting the narrative. There's no way to avoid this influence of the third party. Even in the stage of asking questions to the former prisoner, these questions were formulated in a certain way, and it wasn't the prisoner who chose what to write about their experience, but rather what they were asked about, and what they weren't depended on others. So, definitely, accounts and memoirs authored solely by survivors are the most valuable. We must also remember who wrote a given text, when, from what perspective, and for what purpose. Former prisoners often declare that they needed to write down their experience, undoubtedly as a way to cope with what they had lived through, to show it to the world. I assume that psychologists could say more about the therapeutic role that memoirs play here. However, if we focus on the elements of former prisoners' declarations, why they write, they often speak of the need to remember, first of all, their own experience, but also to commemorate their comrades who perished in the camp, to record their names, because they know that if they pass away, no one will remember these people. Many survivors declare that they wanted to write down their memories to leave them to their children, grandchildren, so that they remember that it is part of their family biography. However, while reading the memories of former prisoners, or analysing these publications from a quantitative aspect, we must also consider a certain context, not to say political, but perhaps more related to the national and social context of their creation. This context strongly influences not only what has been written and how it has been written but also who wrote such memoirs. After the war in Poland, in the Polish publishing market, of course, most of the memoir publications were authored by Polish political prisoners, mostly men. Here, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. Firstly, there were decidedly more male accounts, and women wrote about 30% or slightly less of the publications, which actually can be considered okay since a similar proportion was observed in terms of the number of men and women in the camp. The women's camp was smaller, there were fewer women in the camp than men, so this proportion could be considered somewhat justified. However, it is interesting that while among men, representatives of almost all professions, almost all social classes, took up the pen, among women, and this is particularly noticeable in the first post-war publications, among women who decided to write down their memories were those who were somehow associated with the world of literature or art, writers, Polish studies students, or women associated with the world of culture. Among the first six memoir books authored by women that were published by 1948, three were written by female writers. One was authored by Maria Zarembińska-Broniewska, who was an actress, so she is also associated with the world of art, and the other two ladies were also social activists, also somehow associated with a certain culture of writing, education, and so on. Among men, this played a lesser role. Men, if they were literate, well, they wrote their memoirs. Women, even if they could write, perhaps didn't feel competent enough to present their experience in literary form, or perhaps they were just more occupied with daily life duties. Here, my conclusions might be a bit overstated. However, the fact is that this kind of phenomenon can be observed. Among the first books that appeared, there is only one that illustrates the experience of children, and it's not even a book that strictly relates to the youngest prisoners of Auschwitz. It is the book “Children Accuse” compiled by Maria Hochberg-Mariańska. In this book, testimonies of Jewish children were collected and divided into various sections. In the section “Concentration Camps”, we find four children's accounts, three of which were children who also went through Auschwitz. These are the only accounts of the youngest Auschwitz prisoners in those early years. The fact that children in the early post-war years did not write down their memoirs is quite obvious. Firstly, if we're talking about children of a few years old or children born in the camp, obviously, they didn't have such opportunities. If we're talking about older children, they also often lost a year, two years, sometimes three years of education. After the war, in impoverished societies, the children often had to fight for their own lives, meaning they had to give up education very early on, and even if they continued learning, they often had to start earning money to help support their families. So, there wasn't much opportunity or space to write. These children, above all, didn't yet have the skills to do so. Their ability to write a word wasn't yet the same as the ability to compose a story. The turning point regarding children's accounts was in the 1960s. Then, indeed, we observe primarily a lot of literature on the subject and adults who talked to former child prisoners or wrote down their memories. Subsequently, memoirs of camp children began to appear more and more frequently, those who had grown up and decided to express their experience into a form that would be accessible to readers in their country or around the world, but that was in later years. So, if we talk about the most valuable accounts being written in the shortest time after the war, then of course, for those interested in the topic of children's experiences, they must look among later publications, because there simply aren't any early ones. The Polish political prisoners' memoirs are overrepresented, it seems to be however natural. Firstly, because the Auschwitz camp was located on the Polish soil. After the war, indeed, a lot of the books were published here, and it's natural that they were published by Poles. In the first two years of the camp's existence, it was indeed Poles who constituted the largest group of prisoners, so statistically, there would naturally be more Polish accounts. And when we look at publications released until 1950, of course, from those included in Anna Malcówna’s bibliography, it turns out that about 40% of all of them are memoirs. I'm talking about compact publications, memoir books by a single author, a survivor. I'm not talking about collections of memoirs. The majority, around 40%, are indeed memoirs by Polish prisoners. Quite a few were also published in French, Czech, some in German, and other languages. However, it's clear that there's an overrepresentation of accounts of Polish political prisoners among these publications. It's also obvious that the perspective of Polish political prisoners will be overrepresented in the publications because after the war, if Jews returned to Poland, they mostly returned to extreme poverty, very difficult conditions, and above all, very few of them survived. Most of them were murdered, so there was no one to write down the memories. It should be remembered that in the prisoner community, there were also political prisoners of nationalities other than Polish, and unfortunately, not many of such memoirs translated into Polish were published. If someone would like to search in books in different languages, I refer them to Malcówna’s bibliography. However, examples that I think are worth knowing include Charlotte Delbo's “None of Us Will Return”. It's a book of a very literary nature, with truly extraordinary language. There have been quite a few memoirs by Czechs, including Vladimir Hanak’s “Dead Resurrected”, which was published in 1946, so I'm not sure about the availability of this book at the moment, but it might be worth looking for. Very few memoirs written by Roma people imprisoned in the so-called Zigeunerlager, or family camp for Roma, have survived. There's Otto Rosenberg’s book “Burning Glass”, and perhaps because there are so few, I think it's worth mentioning and exploring. There are also very few surviving memoirs of Soviet prisoners of war, simply because most of them perished. It's worth reaching for Andrey Pogozhev’s book and seeing that different perspective.

So, it's worth looking for memoirs that are diverse in terms of nationality, gender, age, and the author's experiences. Is there anything else to consider when choosing a book to read?

Here, I would like to emphasize that Auschwitz, unlike what we see in contemporary novels, those from pop culture, where Auschwitz is depicted in a very static, unchanging, and universal way, as if the experience of an Auschwitz prisoner was something very general. As if every prisoner in the camp basically went through the same thing. No, the experience of Auschwitz was very different; the camp itself changed over time, depending on the wartime and political situation, and also its localisation. Completely different conditions prevailed in the main camp, in Birkenau, and in various sub-camps. The life of prisoners in transit camps, family camps, or women's camps and the hospital ward was also different. There is no such thing as a universal Auschwitz experience. If we ask what a prisoner lived through in Auschwitz, it cannot be generalized. Polish political prisoners brought in 1940-1941 saw Auschwitz differently from those brought in in 1944. The experience of Jews in the camp was different. From those who were deported there before 1942, practically nobody survived. The experience of the Jewish prisoners that arrived in 1944 was different, since the camp, as I mentioned, was already a completely different institution than what was planned to be created in 1940. When the camp was created, no one predicted that it would become the largest centre of mass extermination; nobody considered the extermination in the form we know it from 1943 or 1944. Therefore, it must be remembered that this changing Auschwitz, as well as the different conditions prevailing in its various parts, determined this experience and very much differentiated it. Another issue is that every individual who entered the camp brought with them what we call cultural capital, with their network of acquaintances, experiences, education, skills, all their demographic attributes; they were women, men, people of a certain age, children, or elderly. What the prisoner brought with them largely determined not only their chances of survival but also how they perceived the camp, in which work squad they could find themselves, what they could experience here, what kind of opportunities they could take advantage of and which they couldn't. Władysław Bartoszewski named his latest book, one of the last to be published, “My Auschwitz”. And he chose that title because he wanted to emphasize that this is his experience of Auschwitz. He used to say that as many prisoners, that many different Auschwitzes or Auschwitz experiences, many representations of Auschwitz we can create. Therefore, it seems to me that while reaching for the accounts of survivors, for their memoirs, it is worth searching for very diverse lectures, to read something by Polish political prisoners, but also something authored by Jewish prisoners deported from different parts of Europe. Let´s read some memories of women, some memories of children, memories of prisoners interned in different parts, because only on this basis we can create a certain comprehensive picture of what Auschwitz was. We should reach for the accounts of prisoners who found themselves there in different periods, which had indeed impact on their chances of survival. When we talk about the memories of Polish political prisoners, as I mentioned constituting the majority of the memories, among those really worth recommending, apart from Tadeusz Borowski and his stories, certainly are the texts of Władysław Bartoszewski, not only “My Auschwitz” but also “It's Worth to be a Decent Person”, which has chapters devoted to his camp experience. I recommend the novel by Wiesław Kielar, “Anus Mundi”, which is considered one of the classic works in the field of memoir literature. There are works by Tadeusz Gierowski “Phantoms”, “To Survive the Day” by Czesław Kempisty, “In the Shadow of the Crematorium” by the author from Silesia, Franciszek Stryj, who ended up in the camp orchestra. Wincenty Gawron's “Volunteer for Auschwitz” describes frequently prisoner self-help and writes about how prisoners organized themselves in a conspiratorial manner, so I think that is very interesting. Bogdan Bartnikowski's book “Childhood behind Barbed Wire” – was the first book to fully capture the experience of a child in a camp. As for women, there are memories of Antonina Piątkowska in “Auschwitz Memories”, where she also writes about prisoner self-help. Helena Dunicz-Niwińska's book “Paths of My Life” deals with the camp orchestra. There are books by authors such as Jadwiga Apostoł-Staniszewska or Maria Rychlik, also Stanisława Gorzowska's “No One Died Alone in Birkenau”. And of course, one cannot fail to mention the texts of Zofia Posmysh “The Passenger”, which was also filmed, or the book “Holiday on the Adriatic”. These are all books published some time ago, but as I mentioned, they can still be easily found and available at a reasonable price on various auction portals today. As I mentioned, the situation of Jews brought to Auschwitz was different; when entering the camp, they first undergo selection, Polish political prisoners were not selected initially, Jews were, and this basically determined their possibilities, their chances, but above all, their mental state. Those who knew that they have to struggle for themselves behaved in the camp differently than those, who arrived and suddenly found out that their entire family had been murdered. Viktor Frankl writes about this, as do other Jewish authors, and here I can highly recommend Viktor Frankl's book “Man's Search for Meaning”. This author was a psychiatrist, and his view of the camp, of prisoner relations, is somehow marked by his profession, I think that's why it's very interesting. There is also Charles Liblau’s book “Kapo from Auschwitz”. Certainly, worth recommending are also books by Jewish prisoners who experienced and survived the camp as children. Here, Imre Kertesz’s “Fatelessness” or “Child of Fortune” by Tomas Bergenthal can be mentioned. The books capture the experience not only from the moment of entering to leaving the camp, but from the beginning of the war, then leaving the camp and searching for his mother, so they are indeed very interesting. Maurice Cling wrote a book called “You Who Enter Here”. I think it's also absolutely worth recommending as well as the accounts of Jewish women like Liana Millu's “Smoke over Birkenau” published in 1947 in Italy but are also available in Polish translation. The book by Chawka Folman-Raban is interesting because she was registered in the camp as a Polish woman under the name Emma Marciniak, so she hid her origin. The title of this book is “I Did Not Say Goodbye to Them”. Among the classics are Olga Lengyel's memoirs “Five Chimneys”, first published in 1947 and later reissued several times. And of course, books by Jewish women who were in the camp as minors, such as Ruth Klüger's “Still Alive”, Stella Müller-Madej's “Through the Eyes of a Child”, which is the story of a girl who went through Płaszów and was saved by Oskar Schindler. There's also Miriam Akavia's book and Halina Birenbaum's ones. The latter has written many books; one of her classic works is “Hope Is the Last to Die”, but I think it's worth exploring other titles by this author as well. Another publication is Sara Zyskin's “Stolen Years”. These are all positions that allow the reader to truly understand the realities of the camps as they were, even if some of the authors mentioned made a factual error, the overall picture of Auschwitz that we build from them will be authentic. I have mentioned earlier that the experience of Auschwitz varied depending on the nationality of the prisoner, their age, but also on what the prisoner went through in this camp. Certainly, the experience of Auschwitz was different for a member of the Sonderkommando than for an ordinary Jewish prisoner who was not so directly involved in the extermination process. As for the members of the Sonderkommando, only a few of their post-war memoirs have survived, we have Szlomo Venezia's book “Sonderkommando: In the Hell of the Gas Chambers” or the recently translated into Polish book by Filip Müller “In the Crematoria of Auschwitz”. However, what is particularly valuable are the notes of the Sonderkommando prisoners written during the war and hidden in the ground around the crematoria, later found and published in a volume entitled “Among the Nightmare of the Crime. Notes of the Sonderkommando Prisoners”. There we can perceive, among others, post-war testimonies of Stanisław Jankowski, but also notes of those prisoners, who were members of the Jewish resistance movement, participated in the uprising and did not survive the camp, including Załmen Gradowski, Załmen Lewenthal, or Chaim Herman. I think this is a particular and truly unique lecture. There are several positions on the market I also highly recommend such as interviews with Henryk Mandelbaum, who was a member of the Sonderkommando. He survived the war and gave the interviews; there are several books, such as a novel entitled “Sonder” published some years ago. Among the newer publications there is also a conversation with the same survivor, “Me from the Auschwitz Crematorium”. This book is particularly precious because the interview was carried out by a historian of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, so it was Dr. Igor Bartosik who did it, and it wasn't just one conversation they conducted as they met, but the talks had been spreading out over a long period of time, so it seems to be quite profound. And at the same time, Dr. Bartosik, as a specialist possessing the knowledge of Auschwitz, immediately corrected or explained certain information provided by Henryk Mandelbaum, so this is definitely a book that I can endorse. A very unique perspective will certainly be the one of escapees from Auschwitz, or prisoners and also authors somehow associated with the underground like Kazimierz Albin's book “Arrest Warrant” or Jerzy Bielecki's “Who Saves One Life”. Both of them were prisoners of the first transport of Poles to Auschwitz, so they really experienced a lot here in the camp. They witnessed the camp from its creation, so their testimony is very significant. When it comes to Jerzy Bielecki's book “Who Saves One Life” it is exceptional because the author met in the camp a Jewish girl, Cyla Zacharewicz (later after the war Cybulska) and they escaped together. It's a story similar to those of Edward Galiński and Mala Zimetbaum. They also escaped, only they were not successful, were caught, brought back to the camp, and murdered. Wiesław Kielar writes quite extensively about them; he was friends with Edward Galiński in the camp. Jerzy Bielecki and Cyla Cybulska succeeded, and Jerzy Bielecki described it; the story itself is very interesting, but the author also shows great literary skills here; this book is really very well written, almost like a thriller. Therefore, I highly praise it. And when we talk about comparing contemporary literature, popular literature, with what the publishing market already offers us regarding KL Auschwitz, a book called “Lovers from Auschwitz” appeared recently, which is in some way inspired by this story. Since I've read both of these books, in the book “Lovers from Auschwitz” the love story of Jerzy Bielecki and Cyla Cybulska is actually completely changed, and I wonder if there is a need to write fiction about a true story whose main character has left his own account? He wrote it in the most authentic way possible because he himself participated in all these events, so if any of you are wondering about “Lovers from Auschwitz” then definitely “Who Saves One Life” will be a better choice here. There is an excellent book by August Kowalczyk called “The Refrain of Barbed Wire”, the author was one of the members of the penal work squad and took part in the mass uprising and escape. He managed to escape from the camp and to survive until the end of the war. After the war, he became an actor and also happened to play the role of SS men, and in this book, he not only describes his camp experiences but also describes various returns to Auschwitz, how he returned here as an actor, how he returned to Auschwitz to tell his story. So, this is definitely an added value of this book, and at the same time August Kowalczyk, also as a person associated with acting, with theater, working with language every day, also shows great literary skills in this book. This book is absolutely fantastic both in terms of content and form and very much worth to put a good word for. When we talk about escapes, there is a book by Tomasz Sobański called “Auschwitz Escapes”, where the author describes various escapes that took place here with the cooperation of the camp's underground organization, so I think it's worth it. “Reports of Auschwitz Escapees”were published in the “Auschwitz Notebooks” in a special issue, I think they are also available on auction portals. There are reports of prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz and immediately after this escape wrote down and passed on their experiences in the form of a report. The first report is by Jerzy Tabeau, the second by Alfred Weksler and Rudolf Vrba, and the third by Czesław Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin, so I think it's also of merit because they were again memories written freshly, right after the events they concerned. If we talk about Auschwitz, we can only learn about it by differentiating this experience and perceiving it from as many different perspectives as possible. Good choices for readers here will also be collections of memories; quite a few have appeared, of the most recommended ones, are probably the books “Numbers Speak” in the compilation of Jan Przewłocki, the collection of memories “I Was a Number” where as the author appears Kazimierz Piechowski, who was a participant in this bold escape where the prisoners stole an SS car and drove it out of the camp. His testimony and the ones of his fellow inmates are included there. There is also a book simply titled “Memoirs of Auschwitz Prisoners," edited by Jadwiga Mateja, and a collection of memoirs called “Chimneys”. It seems to me that indeed the publishing market offers quite a lot here. What may be missing are publications specifically about the SS men or the SS garrison members. There are indeed many more historical studies on this topic. However, if someone would like to get to know this perspective of perpetrators, I think you can recommend the book “Auschwitz through the Eyes of the SS”, where in addition to the memoirs of the first commandant Rudolf Höss, there are also notes by Kremer and Grabner, so this is absolutely fine. I must also mention a book “Private Life of SS Men from Auschwitz”, but I do not mean the book by Ms. Majewska-Brown, since this novel contains many factual errors. What I mean is a book by Piotr Setkiewicz: a collection of accounts young Polish girls employed as household helpers in SS houses. They cleaned up, took care of children, had the opportunity to observe the perpetrators in their natural, family environment, so it is a completely different perspective than the perpetrators we know from prisoners' descriptions. I think it's worth looking into because it gives a fairly broad view. A separate group of books I would like to draw attention to are publications or scientific or popular-scientific studies, although this narrative is not written in the scientific language we know of modern books. These are publications or studies created by former prisoners, capturing or trying to capture the camp from a very human perspective and from a broader perspective than just the author's own experience. Certainly, Herman Langbein's book “People in Auschwitz” is one such book. I have mentioned earlier the SS men, he also writes about his observations on members of the SS crew, their behavior, their attitudes towards the prisoners, but he also discusses many topics related to everyday camp life and the daily problems of people therein.

Another book to be warmly endorsed, because it was absolutely groundbreaking, published in the 1980s, is the book “Auschwitz Unknown” by Stanisław Kłodziński, Zenon Jagoda, and Jan Masłowski. In this book, completely non-obvious topics for Auschwitz issues are addressed: topics of camp addictions, camp language, dreams of prisoners, also cultural life, so these are themes, that in the first years researchers did not deal with at all. It is obvious that in the first post-war years or for the first few decades, the priority was a reliable history of Auschwitz, and this micro-social issue, associated with people, was somehow sidelined. In addition, this book also addresses the question of camp humor, something that seems completely inadequate to the Auschwitz, genocide, the omnipresent death. And here the authors write about how and what prisoners laughed at while in the camp. In this respect, it was a groundbreaking book because it drew the attention of readers to the matters, that had not been addressed before. The same authors also created another book “Prisoners of Auschwitz”, where they focus on interpersonal relationships, mutual assistance. Despite of not being typical memories, I reckon, that these are certainly books worth recommending if we want to build a certain picture of Auschwitz, to learn something really interesting.

So where else can you look for literary recommendations? The bibliography of Mrs. Malcówna was mentioned here. Where else?

The bibliography of Anna Malcówna is absolutely number one, because indeed there, up to the year 1980, most of these most important, earliest written memoirs are included, so that's it and this book can be bought on auction sites for just a few cents until recently, I don't know how it looks like now. It is definitely worth looking for in various antiquarian bookstores, I remember that when I started my scientific journey on the topic of Auschwitz, it was a bit harder because it was still before the Internet, and you had to run around stationary antiquarian bookstores. If you were lucky, you came across a bookseller who knew what he had, but it wasn't that common. However, now there are online antiquarian bookstores available, and they have quite well-made catalogues, which means that if you type “Auschwitz-Birkenau” on auction sites, something will always appear there. However, for people looking for camp literature, I wanted to draw attention only to the fact that, for example, from the titles listed here earlier: those initial publications on Auschwitz they often had “Oświęcim” and “Brzezinka” in the title. Then at the time “Oświęcim” for everyone was obvious that “Oświęcim” the city and “Oświęcim” the camp are completely different matters and there was no problem that this Polish name was used, because everyone knew what it meant. Indeed, the name “Auschwitz” is now used in all titles everywhere. But if you were up to search, you could look under the heading “memoirs from Oświęcim”, “accounts from Oświęcim”, ‘Oświęcim camp”, “concentration camp”, so definitely also keywords: “chimneys”, “ovens”, they very often appear in the titles, so you can try that too. I think it's also worth asking in your local libraries because there is a possibility of interlibrary loan. The disadvantage of this solution is that if someone would like to use very extensive resources, since they number in the thousands, the resources of the Library of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum are counted, almost all of these classic memoirs and also rarer ones are found there. You can go to the museum's website, go to the “Library” tab, and there is a catalogue, you can browse it, and these books can be ordered to your local library. The disadvantage is only that you can only use them in the reading room of your local library, but if someone cares, it is a good way. And if someone just wanted to look for titles, you can also simply search for specific titles on the website of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Library and then try to obtain them on your own elsewhere. I reckon that while inquiring for the memoirs of survivors, it is worth to take a glimpse into books that are in some way elaborations of this topic, such as thorough elaborations or just publications of historians, and most often there in the bibliography the applied memoirs and accounts are mentioned. You can look into the new edition of the “Calendar of Events in Auschwitz Concentration Camp”, because here to a greater extent than in the previous one, memoirs of former prisoners are used, so you can definitely look at the extensive bibliography. The first volume has just been released, but the next ones should be released soon, so I think here the bibliography of such publications. Also in the bibliography of the book “A Monograph on the Human” written by Piotr Cywiński an enormous number of accounts of surviviors was used, and not only those deposited in archives, but also those published, so I think there you can find a lot of names and titles.