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Remembrance Trail in Brzeszcze
A new “Remembrance Trail” project carried out by the community of Brzeszcze in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and other institutions is dedicated to the remembrance of the prisoners of the Jawischowitz and Buda subcamps of Auschwitz, and the local residents who aided them.
“I wish to thank Director Piotr Cywiński and the Museum staff for their professionalism and expert assistance in this whole undertaking,” said Brzeszcze mayor Teresa Jankowska. “This work will certainly contribute to preserving the memory of the tragic events of those years, while showing at the same time that the residents of the Oświęcim area had the courage to bring aid and hope to the prisoners of Auschwitz.”
The Remembrance Trail project includes a documentary film, The Interrupted Lesson, about the way local civilians helped Auschwitz prisoners. In addition, two books are being published. One of them is a guide to the Trail, covering the most important places and buildings in Brzeszcze connected with the Auschwitz camp and aid to the prisoners. The other is a Polish version of the book Jawischowitz—An Auschwitz Subcamp, which was originally published in French. The book tells the story of the subcamp, where prisoners labored at tasks including the mining of coal. Three members of the Museum staff were involved in this project: Dr. Jacek Lachendro, a historian, wrote the guidebook, Jarek Mensfelt translated the book about the subcamp from French, and Paweł Sawicki directed the documentary film.
Additionally, memorial plaques have been erected at four places in Brzeszcze associated with the suffering of the prisoners: at the coalmine where the people imprisoned in the subcamp labored, at the local cemetery where victims of the Death March are buried, and at the sites of the two Auschwitz subcamps, Jawischowitz and Budy.
The Brzeszcze community has been active in recent years in other ways of commemorating the subcamp. “We have already renovated the building that housed the camp bathhouse and latrine. We have set up a Memorial Chamber in the Women’s Penal Company building, and a museum room in the mine managers’ villa where souvenirs of the wartime history of our community are on display,” said Arkadiusz Laszczyk of the Promotion and Development Department of the Brzeszcze local government.
The Remembrance Trail project was made possible thanks to financial support from the European Union, in a subsidy that was part of the program called “Europe for Citizens: Promoting Active European Citizenship.”
Jawischowitz, one of the largest subcamps, was located in Brzeszcze, about 10 km. from the Auschwitz I Main Camp. It was in operation from 1942 to 1945 and housed prisoners who labored in the local coalmine.
About 2,500 prisoners passed through the subcamp. It marked the first time in the history of the concentration camp system that prisoners labored underground in a mine. In ethnic terms, Jews from various countries occupied by the Third Reich made up the majority of the prisoners in the subcamp throughout its operation. Jawischowitz subcamp was notorious throughout the Auschwitz complex, because of the very poor conditions and high death rate there.
A second Auschwitz subcamp, Budy, was located in Brzeszcze during the war. The prisoners there labored at dredging ponds and in the fields. The Women’s Penal Company, made up of prisoners transferred from Auschwitz II-Birkenau, was also housed in Budy for a time.
