Some 7,500 prisoners of the German Nazi camp Auschwitz, including over 500 children, were liberted on January 27, 1945 by Red Army soldiers.

Listen about the last days of the camp's operation and the moment of liberation. The podcast includes testimonies of:

Anna Tytoniak

Kazimierz Smoleń

Lea Shinar

Irena Konieczna

Józef Tabaczyński

Wanda Błachowska-Tarasiewicz

Louis Posner

Jakub Wolman

Zofia Jankowska-Palińska

Anna Chomicz

Zofia Lutomska-Kucharska

Wanda Dramińska

Edward Czempiel

Jakub Gordon

Andrzej Kozłowski

Tadeusz Mleko

Garnier (first name unknown)

Alfred Fiderkiewicz

Aleksander Vorontsov

Wilhelm Wazdrąg

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(English voiceovers: Mary Castillo, Toon Dreessen, Greg Littlefield, Ian Manger, Therese McLaughlin, Calum Melville, Mike Skagerlind, Grey Stafford, Michael Takiff, Tom Vamos, Kate Weinrieb, Sarah Weinstein Edwards).

Soviet prisoners of war are the fourth largest group of victims of the German Auschwitz camp, after Jews, Poles and Roma. A total of 11,964 prisoners of war were registered at the camp. In addition, according to estimates, at least 3,000 Red Army soldiers were deported to the camp and murdered without being entered into the camp records.

Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Museum's Research Center talks about the history and fate of Soviet POWs at Auschwitz.

Upon admission to the camp, prisoners underwent a registration process, during which various documents related to the individual were filled out. Dr. Wojciech Płosa, head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives, talks about the details of this process.

We wish to thank Toon Dressen for recording the English voiceover.

Josef Mengele was a doctor of medicine and philosophy, an assistant to Prof. Otmar von Verschuer in the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, member of the Nazi Party and the SS.

In Auschwitz, he was the chief physician in the Roma and Sinti Family Camp in Birkenau, and from August to December 1944, he was also the chief physician of the entire Birkenau camp.

Mengele was responsible for the experiments on human heredity. He was never punished for his crimes. Dr Agnieszka Kita from the Archives of the Muzeum talks about Josef Mengele.

English voiceover: Therese McLaughlin

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Online lesson on medicine in Auschwitz: https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/2022_medycyna_en/

Listen to the podcast about medicine in Auschwitz: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2s2Jb91u55L6s80XUlq5JW?si=8kHYPgQXS1mIwabnrRaNqg

The podcast on experiments: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Ij4icZ6kicc96gWL3f3y0?si=_VwpbejMRiOOhvmIxmBdUA

Prisoners of Auschwitz were able to send various types of illegal messages—both within the camp and outside the barbed wire fences. Some were short letters addressed to family members; others were messages and reports for underground resistance organizations. Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Auschwitz Museum Archives, discusses this unique collection of documents.

Nazi Germany deported some 1,3 million people to Auschwitz. Only a little above 400 thousand were registered in the camp as prisoners. Some could conduct correspondence with the outside world, however it had a unique character.

Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the Archives of the Museum talks about official prisoners’ correspondence: letters and postcards sent out from the camp and sent to the camp by their relatives.

Bogdan Bartnikowski was born in Warsaw in 1932. During the Warsaw Uprising, he and his mother were expelled from their home. The Germans initially sent them to a transit camp in Pruszków, and then deported them to Auschwitz where they were separated.

On January 11, 1945, both were evacuated to Berlin-Blankenburg, where they were imprisoned until their liberation on April 22, 1945. After this, they returned to Warsaw.

Bogdan Bartnikowski is the author of memoirs, including "Childhood Behind Barbed Wire.”

In the „On Auschwitz" podcast, we invite you to listen to an interview with Bogdan Bartnikowski about his wartime experiences.

In August and September 1944 - after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising - almost 13,000 inhabitants of the occupied capital city and surrounding towns: men, women, the elderly, children, even infants, were deported to Auschwitz by the German authorities. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre talks about their fate in the camp.

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We wish to thank Kate Weinrieb for her help in the production of the English version of the podcast.

In the picture: Jadwiga and Aleksander Bogdaszewski with their children, photograph taken in 1944, in Warsaw. Apart from two-year-old Basia, who was in hospital when the Uprising broke out, the rest of the family were expelled from Warsaw and then, on 12 August, deported to Auschwitz. Aleksander was next transferred to Flossenbürg, where he died in 1944, whereas Jadwiga was transferred in a women’s transport to another camp in Germany. Their children, Zdzisława, aged 10, and Stanisław, aged 6, were liberated in Auschwitz.