Sonderkommandos were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommandos, who were always inmates, were unrelated to the SS-Sonderkommandos, which were ad hoc units formed from members of various SS offices between 1938 and 1945.
The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
Czesława Kwoka was a Polish Catholic girl who was murdered at the age of 14 in Auschwitz. One of the thousands of minor child and teen victims of German World War II war crimes against ethnic Poles in German-occupied Poland, she is among those memorialized in an Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum exhibit, "Block no. 6: Exhibition: The Life of the Prisoners".
Malka Zimetbaum, also known as "Mala" Zimetbaum or "Mala the Belgian", was a Belgian woman of Polish Jewish descent, known for her escape from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. She is also remembered for her lifesaving acts in favor of other prisoners during her captivity at Auschwitz and for the resistance she displayed at her execution following her being recaptured, when she tried committing suicide before the guards were able to execute her, then slapped the guard who tried to stop her, before eventually being killed. She was the first woman to escape from Auschwitz.
Sigmund Sobolewski was a Polish Catholic Holocaust survivor and activist. He was the 88th prisoner to enter Auschwitz on the first transport to the concentration camp on June 14, 1940, and remained a prisoner for four and a half years during World War II. He was an opponent of Holocaust denial and was notable as a non-Jewish victim and witness who confronted neo-Nazis, antisemites and Holocaust deniers. His life and memories as a survivor are recounted in Prisoner 88: The Man in Stripes by Rabbi Roy Tanenbaum.
Wilhelm Brasse was a Polish professional photographer and a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War II. He became known as the "famous photographer of Auschwitz concentration camp." His life and work were the subject of the 2005 Polish television documentary film The Portraitist (Portrecista), which first aired in the Proud to Present series on the Polish TVP1 on 1 January 2006.
The Portraitist is a 2005 Polish television documentary film about the life and work of Wilhelm Brasse, the famous "photographer of Auschwitz", made for TVP1, Poland, which first aired in its "Proud to Present" series on January 1, 2006. It also premiered at the Polish Film Festival, at the West London Synagogue, in London, on March 19, 2007.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a museum on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland.
The World Holocaust Forum is a series of events aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust. It is also known as the "Let My People Live!" Forum.
Holocaust tourism is tourism to destinations connected with the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust in World War II, including visits to sites of Jewish martyrology such as former Nazi death camps and concentration camps turned into state museums. It belongs to a category of the so-called 'roots tourism' usually across parts of Central Europe, or, more generally, the Western-style dark tourism to sites of death and disaster.
Rudolf Reder a.k.a. Roman Robak was one of only two survivors of the Bełżec extermination camp. His testimony after the war became very well known. He submitted a deposition to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in January 1946 in Kraków. In terms of the number of Polish Jews who perished in its gas chambers, Bełżec had the third highest death toll among the six Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland, estimated between 500,000 and 600,000 men, women and children. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka killed more people during the Holocaust.
Blind Love: A Holocaust Journey Through Poland with Man's Best Friend is a 2015 documentary film about blind Israelis traveling to Poland with the help of their guide dogs, to learn about the Holocaust. Footage includes blind participants taking part in the 2012 and 2013 March of the Living programs. The film is narrated by Michael Enright of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations is a large format volume, published by Canadian Second Story Press, inspired by a 2014 United Nations exhibit of reflections and images of Holocaust survivors and students who have traveled on the March of the Living since 1988. The exhibit and the book are intended to educate a new generation of students about the atrocities of the Second World War. In collaboration with March of the Living, an organization that spearheads visits to the Polish grounds where Nazi atrocities occurred, Toronto religious leader and Holocaust educator Eli Rubenstein compiled this book which includes an introduction from Pope Francis.
Bat-Sheva Dagan was a Polish-Israeli orator, psychologist, and writer. A Holocaust survivor born in Łódź, Poland, she was incarcerated in a ghetto in Radom with her parents and two sisters in 1940. After her parents and a sister were deported and murdered in Treblinka in August 1942, she escaped to Germany, but was discovered, imprisoned, and deported to Auschwitz in May 1943.
Eli Rubenstein is a Holocaust educator, writer, filmmaker, and activist. He is currently the religious leader of Congregation Habonim Toronto, a Toronto synagogue founded by Holocaust survivors, served as the Director of Education for March of the Living International since 1988, and currently served as National Director of March of the Living Canada from 1988 to 2024.
Nate Leipciger is a Holocaust educator, public speaker and author.
Sidney Zoltak, is a Polish-Canadian author, Holocaust educator and the subject of several films. Zoltak has been featured on CBC in a special done by the channel.
David Shentow was a Belgian-Canadian Holocaust survivor and educator, featured in Canadian films, books and articles. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, and the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers in 2017. For "extraordinary community service to the citizens of the City of Ottawa, the Province of Ontario and Canada", the "David Shentow Park" was unveiled by Mayor Jim Watson on 11 September 2022.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation (ABMF) was founded in New York, USA, in 2012 as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the preservation of the original artifacts and grounds of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp KL Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau, supervised by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland.
Edward Mosberg was a Polish-born American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist. During the Holocaust, he was held by the Nazis from 14 years of age in Kraków Ghetto, Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, Auschwitz concentration camp, Mauthausen concentration camp, and a slave labor camp in Linz, Austria, that was liberated by the US Army in 1945. Nearly all of his family were murdered in the Holocaust.
