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See the faces of these people. 18 522 portraits on the Belgian exhibition at the Auschwitz Memorial
18,522 archival photographs of people deported to Auschwitz from Nazi-occupied Belgium can be seen on a touch-screen installed in the Belgian national exhibition in block 20 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
“This collection helps to make the deportation of Jews and also Roma to Auschwitz more than a matter of statistics. The photographs are a living pedagogical tool, and we can see the faces of these people. We can open each transport, each train, and give these people faces,” said Ward Adriaens, director of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, which developed the display. “Visitors can look at each portrait and learn the names of the deportees. Looking at all these faces is a special experience, because we are looking at these people, but they are also looking at us in a sense, and this leads to deep feelings of sympathy and empathy.”
A search engine in Polish, English, French, German, and Dutch makes it possible to seek the name of a specific person and to locate their relatives, as well as seeing the archival photographs available.
“This project gives each user a uniquely personalized perspective on what the Holocaust really meant, and not only for the Jewish community in Belgium. These photographs personalize things to such a degree that they become universal. This is a lesson about what can happen if we are not careful, if we do not watch what is going on around us. We must remember all the time what kinds of consequences racism and intolerance can lead to,” said the ambassador of Belgium in Poland, Jan Luykx.
The Documentation Center at the Belgian museum spent 13 years searching the archives connected with Jews who were in Belgium during World War II. Their number is estimated at 56 thousand. The primary source of information on them was German documentation including the National Registry of Jews, the list of members of the Judenrat in Belgium, the files of the Gestapo, and the lists from transports to Auschwitz. The files of the Police for Foreigners, containing three million dossiers on Jews on Belgian soil, proved especially valuable. The wealth of documentation made it possible to learn the fate of Belgian Jews from the moment they entered the country, through the compulsory registration mandated by anti-Semitic legislation, to the documentation that accompanied forced labor and deportation to Auschwitz.
“This documentation also revealed that over half the Jewish community in Belgium was rescued and that almost half of them came from Poland, a fact that is important to me as ambassador. I am very pleased that this screen will be installed at the Auschwitz Museum, since it will be especially important for the families of the deported. At present, we plan to continue the archival research. The ultimate goal is to digitalize and publish all the collections,” added Ambassador Luykx.
All of the photographs have also been published in a four-volume album, Mecheln-Auschwitz 1942-1944.
