Documents associated with the lives of several guards from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were recently discovered in the nearby town of Oswiecim.
Auschwitz is a Germanization of the name of the town where the largest concentration camp during the Holocaust was located.
Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawick said Monday that the documents included food coupons, death certificates, and a map. The rest of the documents are still being evaluated.
The documents were discovered in an attic of a home in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim that was undergoing renovation, Sawick said.
“The sensational value of this discovery is in the fact that these original documents, bearing the names of main murderers from Auschwitz, were found so many years after the war,” said Adam Cyra, a historian for the Auschwitz Memorial in an interview with the Associated Press.
“The documents contain the names of people who played a decisive role in murdering Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau, who were in charge of selecting Jews, or of the use of Zyklon B,” said Cyra. Zyklon B was the poisonous gas used to kill the Jews.
A food coupon for sugar bears a signature that is suspected to be from Joseph Mengele, the infamous Secret Service (SS) doctor known for his inhumane experiments.
Mengele, one of the few high level SS officials who were never captured, is reported to have drowned in 1979 in Brazil.
Another document includes mention of Dr. Victor Capesius, who conducted other medical experiments and was known as one of the camp pharmacists.
None of the files are said to document the crimes against humanity conducted at the concentration camp.
Auschwitz is a Germanization of the name of the town where the largest concentration camp during the Holocaust was located.
Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawick said Monday that the documents included food coupons, death certificates, and a map. The rest of the documents are still being evaluated.
The documents were discovered in an attic of a home in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim that was undergoing renovation, Sawick said.
“The sensational value of this discovery is in the fact that these original documents, bearing the names of main murderers from Auschwitz, were found so many years after the war,” said Adam Cyra, a historian for the Auschwitz Memorial in an interview with the Associated Press.
“The documents contain the names of people who played a decisive role in murdering Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau, who were in charge of selecting Jews, or of the use of Zyklon B,” said Cyra. Zyklon B was the poisonous gas used to kill the Jews.
A food coupon for sugar bears a signature that is suspected to be from Joseph Mengele, the infamous Secret Service (SS) doctor known for his inhumane experiments.
Mengele, one of the few high level SS officials who were never captured, is reported to have drowned in 1979 in Brazil.
Another document includes mention of Dr. Victor Capesius, who conducted other medical experiments and was known as one of the camp pharmacists.
None of the files are said to document the crimes against humanity conducted at the concentration camp.
Auschwitz
The Auschwitz concentration camp is known as the most infamous camp to operate during the Holocaust.
More than 1 million people were officially killed or tortured to death at the camp which operated from 1940 to 1945—over 90 percent of them Jews.
However, initial testimony at the Nuremberg trials from Rudolf Hess, stated that Adolf Eichmann, the Lt. Col. of the SS, also known as “the Architect of the Holocaust,” had told him 2.5 million Jews had been killed in gas chambers.
Famed authors and Holocaust survivors Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel had been incarcerated in the camp.
