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MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU FORMER GERMAN NAZI
CONCENTRATION AND EXTERMINATION CAMP

News

An educational session on "Sport and sportspeople in KL Auschwitz" - 25 November 2021.

ICEAH
15-11-2021

The history of sports and the fate of sportspeople in the German Nazi Auschwitz camp will be the subject of an online educational session on 25 November 2021 organised by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. The meeting will be translated simultaneously into English and Russian.

"Sport and...
"Sport and...
"Sport and...

The concept of "sport" at KL Auschwitz has been distorted by its use as a term for mass-scale, exhausting exercises combined with drill and singing. This form of sport, referred to after the war as pseudo-sport or quasi-sport, was usually a way of enforcing discipline and punishing prisoners.

The approximately 1.3 million people deported to Auschwitz also included prominent members of the sports community, who had practised various sports such as boxing, wrestling, and team games like football, basketball, and volleyball before the war. Many were Olympic athletes, multiple champions who represented their country in their various disciplines. Sporting competitions of several kinds were held in the camp, primarily for the amusement of the SS crew.

The session programme includes a lecture by Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka  from the Museum Research Centre, presentation of the temporary exhibition "Sport and sportspeople in KL Auschwitz" that will be discussed by its curator Renata Koszyk and a meeting with Eleonora Szafran, the daughter of Tadeusz Pietrzykowski, a Polish boxer incarcerated in Auschwitz.

Participation in the event is free. Please send your application through the online form by 24 November 2021. After this date, you will receive an email with a link to the meeting.

SESSION PROGRAMME:

17.00-17.05 - Opening of the session

Andrzej Kacorzyk - Director of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust

17.05-17.50 - Presentation: "Sports and sportspeople in KL Auschwitz", temporary exhibition at the Memorial

Renata Koszyk, curator of the exhibition

Recess

18.05-18.50 - Lecture: The role of sport in the Auschwitz prisoners' community

Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka, Auschwitz Museum Research Centre

Recess

19.05-19.50 - Vestiges of the mementoes - the fate of Tadeusz Pietrzykowski "Teddy" in a conversation with his daughter Eleonora Szafran

The meeting will be held by Renata Koszyk

More information about the exhibition

We discuss the history of sport and sportspeople at KL Auschwitz in our podcast: