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Fairy Tales from Auschwitz — Educational Session
The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust organized an educational session entitled “Fairy Tales from Auschwitz”. A simple title, but extraordinary history. Prisoners of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp secretly created these fairy tales for their own children. They also made beautiful illustrations for them. There were almost 30 who risked creating them in the shadows of the crematoria chimneys. They started this work when one of them found in the near-by “Canada” warehouses a colorful book of stories that belonged to children who had been murdered in the gas chambers. That is when they decided to write and illustrate fairy tales for their own children.
—“I don’t know if this fairy tale will reach your little hands, but regardless I decided to paint for you, my dear blond-haired Zbysiu, these pictures” — wrote Henryk Czulda to his oldest son.
The younger son of Henryk Czulda, Andrzej, is the director of a moving film, dedicated to the memory of his father entitled “Fairy Tales from the Land of Ovens”. During the session there was a meeting with the director and a showing of the film. During the workshop there was a showing at the Collections Department of the original “Fairy Tales”, as well as other items made for children by the prisoners of Auschwitz.
