In the thousands of preserved registration photographs of Auschwitz prisoners, we can see faces of the men and women imprisoned in the camp. 

Dr Wojciech Płosa, the head of Auschwitz Memorial Archives, talks about the history of these photographs.

The Auschwitz concentration camp had almost 50 sub‑camps. The largest of them had extensive administrative structures, separate hospital barracks, showers and even small crematoria. In the smaller ones, prisoners were locked up for the night in rooms or cellars—there were no fences or guard towers there and meals were delivered from the main camp. The majority of prisoners were employed in the armaments and extractive industries, or agriculture. At the beginning of 1945, they held 35,000 men and women prisoners, more than Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau combined (31,000).

Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Memorial research center talks about the history of Auschwitz sub-camps.

Activities by the Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in the Third Reich in 1933 because of the Witnesses’ religious principles and pacifistic views, as well as their organization’s international connections. As a result, many of them were imprisoned in concentration camps.

Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about the history and fate of some 400 Jehovah’s Witnesses incarcerated in the camp.

The historians of the Memorial today estimate, that the Germans murdered around 1,1 million out of 1,3 million people deported to Auschwitz.

Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, talks about the history of research on the number of Auschwitz victims.

The fate children who were registered in Auschwitz as prisoners was no different in principle from that of adults. Just like them, they suffered from hunger and cold, were used as laborers, and were punished, put to death, and used as subjects in criminal experiments by SS doctors.

Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka from Memorial’s Research Center talks about the Auschwitz camp through the eyes of a child.

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Listen also to the podcast "Children in Auschwitz": https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-8-Children-at-Auschwitz-e16t4gh

Two extremely important factors in the exhaustion, deprivation and destruction of prisoners at Auschwitz were hunger and hard slave labour.

Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Centre talks in our podcast about this aspect of the camp's functioning.

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Listen also to the podcast about living and sanitary conditions as well as camp clothing: https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-10-Living-and-sanitary-conditions-as-well-as-camp-clothing-at-Auschwitz-e18dcik

One of the darkest chapters of the history of Auschwitz is undoubtedly the story of the Sonderkommando - a group of prisoners, mainly Jews - forced by the Germans to work in gas chambers and crematoria of the camp.

Prisoners assigned to this unit, employed in places of mass extermination, could not refuse to do their work or ask to be transferred to perform other tasks in the camp. Failure to carry out the instructions of the SS would result in immediate death.

Dr. Igor Bartosik from the Research Center of the Memorial talks about the fate of Sonderkommando prisoners.

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Listen also to our podcast about the first crematorium and the beginnings of the Sonderkommando: https://anchor.fm/auschwitz-memorial/episodes/On-Auschwitz-6-the-first-crematorium-and-the-Sonderkommando-in-Auschwitz-e14rnsj

During its entire existence, slightly over 400 thousand people were registered at Auschwitz as prisoners - including 131 thousand women. The two largest groups of prisoners were Jews - about 200 thousand - and Poles, some 140 thousand.

Since Germans established the camp in spring 1940 with the members of Polish resistance and intelligentsia in mind, Poles dominated in the camp at first. This situation began to change in March 1942, when mass deportations of Jews for extermination began.

Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center, talks about the situation of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the camp.

The term "sport" in KL Auschwitz was distorted by using it to refer to the exhausting exercises combined with the drill and singing applied on a mass scale. This form of sport, referred to after the war as pseudo-sport, was usually a way of enforcing discipline and punishing prisoners.

However, among people deported by the Germans to Auschwitz, there were pre-war sportsmen and sportswomen: Olympians and national champions. Some prisoners had also the opportunity to practice some sports in the camp. These included wrestling and boxing, as well as games such as soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Mind sports were also popular among prisoners, particularly chess, but also card games.

Renata Koszyk, an educator at the Auschwitz Memorial and curator of the exhibition dedicated to this topic, talks about sport and sportspeople in Auschwitz.

The horrible living conditions created by the SS authorities in the block and barracks in all parts of the Auschwitz complex as well as the appalling sanitary conditions contributed to the exhaustion and death of many prisoners. The clothing which was completely inadequate for the weather conditions also had negative effect on the condition and health of the prisoners.

Dr. Jacek Lachendro of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about the living and sanitary conditions and types of camp clothing.