News
Auschwitz Museum acquires the original of illustrated diary made by Survivor Alfred Kantor
The Memorial has expanded its Collections with an exceptional document by Auschwitz survivor Alfred Kantor, who was deported to the camp from the Theresienstadt ghetto in late 1943. "The diary of Alfred Kantor" includes his drawings and notes, made both during his imprisonment and in the postwar period, constitute a remarkable visual testimony of the Holocaust and the experience of prisoners.
The acquisition was made possible by the decision of the artist’s children, Jerry Kantor and Monica Kantor-Churchill, who reside in the United States. These unique works will now receive professional conservation care and will be integrated into the Museum’s collection of artworks created by prisoners and survivors, forming an invaluable visual record of the crimes committed in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.
“This extraordinary visual testimony could only be acquired thanks to the family, the children of the Survivor Alfred Kantor. I am grateful for their trust and for their deep conviction that these artworks should come to the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum. They are, after all, part of this very history,” emphasized the Museum’s Director, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
Members of Alfred Kantor’s family stressed the special significance of the place to which they entrusted the works: “This is simply where this collection belongs. I cannot imagine it being anywhere else. The Museum staff and their expertise in preserving such materials are unmatched. This is exactly where such an important historical document should be,” said Jerry Kantor.
“Auschwitz is associated with immense suffering, and so many people should understand that. When I think about what this collection represents—something created by a person who went through Auschwitz—I cannot imagine a better place for these works. This material should be where it can be properly cared for, studied, and truly understood. It feels right that it is now at the Auschwitz Museum,” he added.
The original manuscript of "The Diary of Alfred Kantor", featuring drawings from the Theresienstadt ghetto and the Auschwitz and Schwarzheide camps, covers the period from December 1941 to May 1945. This album contains 127 pages of original watercolour drawings, together with additional pasted-in authentic documents, such as a deportation order, a yellow star and a camp number, as well as 12 drawings and watercolours, 30–35 letters, notes, photographs and travel documents from the years 1941–49.
In the postwar album, in the section dedicated to Auschwitz, the depictions include the interior of a freight car transporting Jews to the camp, the arrival at the ramp, the unloading process, the selections, the luggage abandoned on the ramp, and the transport of people by trucks to the gas chambers.
“The album also feature scenes from sector BIIb in Auschwitz II-Birkenau: the tattooing of numbers, the appearance of the camp, roll calls, prisoner forced labor, living conditions in the barracks, portraits of camp perpetrators, and scenes of daily torment. Other drawings depict the smoking chimneys of crematoria, the removal of bodies from gas chambers, and the open-air burning pits. In the album there are also drawings that illustrate experiences of the author in other camps,” said Agnieszka Sieradzka, a curator in the Museum’s Collections.
“The family also included sketches by Alfred Kantor made on poor-quality paper, most likely created by him during his imprisonment in the camp. They show, among other things, the loading of the bodies of deceased prisoners onto carts and naked people standing in the snow following disinfection,” she added.
In her view, what makes this collection so valuable is the fact that the drawings form a coherent narrative. “There is no other collection in the Museum’s collection that contains such a comprehensive set of artworks telling a coherent story of one man’s wartime experiences, including his time in the camps,” emphasised Sieradzka.
“I don’t know if there is anything truly comparable exists, but I would wholeheartedly recommend that everyone go there and see it. Auschwitz must not be forgotten. It is an profoundly moving chapter of history, nearly impossible to fully comprehend. It goes beyond what we can easily understand, yet we must confront it to ensure it never happens again. I believe people should visit Auschwitz with respect, give themselves time to truly absorb the experience it, and then carry it forward. The significance of Auschwitz should remain within us—and must never be lost,” emphasized Jerry Kantor.
Alfred Kantor was born on 7 November 1923 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He had always enjoyed drawing and began studies at the Rotter School of Advertising Art. However, during the German occupation, he was forced—as a Jew—to leave school. At the end of 1941, he received an order for deportation order for the Theresienstadt ghetto. It was there that Kantor began documenting everyday life through drawings, keeping a sketchbook and creating small artworks as keepsakes for fellow prisoners.
He was deported to Auschwitz on 18 December 1943 and assigned prisoner number 168524. While in the camp, he managed to obtain paper and a pencil, allowing him to continue drawing, although he later had to destroy many of these works. After the war, he told his son that drawing what he witnessed and endured in Auschwitz helped him process the horror from the perspective of an observer rather than a victim.
In 1944, he was transferred to Schwarzheide, a subcamp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where supervision was intensified. Although he had to destroy most of his drawings, several small works survived thanks to a friend who smuggled them out. After liberation by the Soviet Army, Kantor moved in July 1945 to a displaced persons camp in Deggendorf, Germany, where the saved drawings and images preserved in memory became the basis for a complete album.
After the war, he continued his artistic work, and his creations—rooted in personal camp experiences—remain an important testimony to the history of the Holocaust.
