The first publications about Auschwitz were published during the war, while the camp was still in operation. The immediate postwar years also abounded in numerous publications by witnesses-Survivors of those events. Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka of the Auschwitz Museum Research Center discusses the advantages of literature written by direct witnesses over literary fiction inspired by the subject of Auschwitz.

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Books Published before 1950: 

ZAREMBINA Natalia, Auschwitz. The Camp of Death (ENG).

SZMAGLEWSKA SEWERYNA, Smoke over Birkenau 1947, (ENG).

ŻYWULSKA Krystyna, I survived Auschwitz (ENG).

BOROWSKI Tadeusz, SIEDLECKI Janusz Nel, OLSZEWSKI Krystyn, We were in Auschwitz, (ENG). 

FRANKL Victor,  Ein Psycholog Erlebt das Konzentrationslager, 1946 (GER).

NYISZLI Miklos, Dr. Mengele boncoló orvosa voltam az auschwitzi krematóriumban, 1947, (HUN).

NYISZLI Miklos, Auschwitz: A doctor’s Eyewitness Account, 1947; I was Doctor Mengele’s Assistant.

MILLU Liana, Il fumo di Birkenau (IT), 1947.

Published after 1950: 

BOROWSKI Tadeusz, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (ENG)

ZIĘBA Adam, A Piece of Bread (ENG). 

GAWALEWICZ Adolf, Reflections in the Gas Chamber’s Waiting Room: From the Memoirs of a Muselmann.

SOBOLEWICZ Tadeusz, But I survived. 

BARTNIKOWSKI Bogdan, Childhood Behind Barbed Wire.

DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, One of the girls in the band (ENG).

DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Les chemins de ma vie (FRA).

DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Los caminos de mi vida (ESP).

DUNICZ-NIWIŃSKA Helena, Wege meines Lebens (GER)

LEVI Primo, If This Is a Man.

LEVI Primo, The Truce.

WIESEL Elie, Night.

FRANKL Victor, Men’s Search for Meaning.

LAKS Szymon, Music of Another World.

AMERY Jean, At the Mond’s Limits.

LIBLAU Charles, I kapo di Auschwitz (IT).

LIBLAU Charles, Les kapo d’Auschwitz (FRA).

MELMERSTEIN Mel, By Bread Alone: The Story of 4685.

KERTESZ Imre, Fateless.

BUERGENTHAL Thomas, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy.

CLING Maurice, Vous qui entrez ici (FRA).

LENGYEL Olga, Five Chimneys.

KORNREICH-GELISSEN Rena, Rena’s Promise.

ROSENBERG Otto, A Gypsy in Auschiwtz. 

DELBO Charlotte, None of Us Will Return.

HANAK Vladimir, Mrtwy se vratil (CZECH)

Sonderkommando:

VENEZIA Szlomo, Inside the Gas Chambers.

MULLER Filip, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers.

Children:

BIRENBAUM Halina, Hope is the Last to Die.

ZYSKIND Sara, The Stolen Years (ENG).

KLUGER Ruth, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (ENG).

MULLER-MADEJ Stella, A girl From Chindlers List (ENG). 

Escapes:

ALBIN Kazimierz, Warrant of Arrest (ENG). 

BIELECKI Jerzy, Wer ein Leben rettet… (GER).

KOWALCZYK August, A Barbed Wire Refrain.

About SS men:

Auschwitz Seen by the SS.

The Private Lives of the Auschwitz SS, red. Piotr SETKIEWICZ.