News
Webinar: Women at KL Auschwitz - 26 March 2026
The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust invites to a webinar titled: “It Was a Different World, a Place Living Its Own Life. The Women Camp in KL Auschwitz.” The webinar will take place 26 March 2026 on the Zoom platform and will include simultaneous interpretation into English.
Program (CET)
16:00 | Opening of the webinar
16:05-17:05 | The Fate of Women in KL Auschwitz - lecture by Dr. Wanda Malicka-Witek, PhD Research Center, Auschwitz Museum
17:10-17:55 | The First Women Prisoners in KL Auschwitz. Selected Stories - lecture by Dr. Teresa Wontor-Cichy, Research Center, Auschwitz Museum
18:00-19:00 | I Tried to Make Everything Look Somehow More Beautiful. Women’s Art in KL Auschwitz - lecture by Agnieszka Sieradzka, curator of the Museum’s art collection
Participation
Participation in the webinar is free of charge. Registration should be submitted using the online form by 24 March 2026.
After this date, participants will receive an email with a link to join the meeting. The webinar is intended for adults.
For additional information please contact Dr. Maria Martyniak from ICEAH: maria.martyniak@auschwitz.org
---
On 26 March 1942, the Germans imprisoned the first two groups of women in the Auschwitz concentration camp. One transport consisted mainly of German criminal prisoners from Ravensbrück, selected to serve as functionaries supervising the arriving women. On the same day, a transport of 999 Jewish women from Poprad in Slovakia reached Auschwitz.
On 27 April 1942, the first Polish women deported from prisons in Kraków and Tarnów were registered in the camp. Later, Jewish women from many countries and political prisoners, mainly from Poland, France, Yugoslavia, and the USSR, were also imprisoned there.
During nearly three years of the women’s camp’s existence, approximately 131,000 women prisoners passed through it.
As the Nazi policy of extermination developed, Auschwitz also became the final destination for hundreds of thousands of Jewish women, who were murdered in gas chambers immediately after arrival and selection. Only those considered young and physically strong had a chance to be registered as prisoners. Many women, unwilling to separate from their children, unknowingly went with them to their deaths.
More about the fate of women in KL Auschwitz:
