Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question.
Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase meaning "Work sets you free" or "Work makes one free". The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps.
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works include If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and The Periodic Table (1975), linked to qualities of the elements, which the Royal Institution named the best science book ever written.
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss was a German SS officer during the Nazi era who, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was convicted for war crimes. Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. He tested and implemented means to accelerate Hitler's order to systematically exterminate the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. On the initiative of one of his subordinates, Karl Fritzsch, Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B to be used in gas chambers, where more than a million people were killed.
The Drowned and the Saved is a book of essays by Italian-Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi on life and death in the Nazi extermination camps, drawing on his personal experience as a survivor of Auschwitz (Monowitz). The author's last work, written in 1986, a year before his death, The Drowned and the Saved is an attempt at an analytical approach, in contrast to his earlier books If This Is a Man (1947) and The Truce (1963), which are autobiographical.
The Hurricane is a 1937 film set in the South Seas, directed by John Ford and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, about a Polynesian who is unjustly imprisoned. The climax features a special effects hurricane. It stars Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, with Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey, John Carradine, and Jerome Cowan. James Norman Hall, Jon Hall's uncle, co-wrote the novel of the same name on which The Hurricane is based.
Giovanni Palatucci was an Italian police official who was long believed to have saved thousands of Jews in Fiume between 1939 and 1944 from being deported to Nazi extermination camps. In 2013 a research panel of historians led by the Centro Primo Levi reviewed almost 700 documents and concluded that Palatucci had followed Italian Social Republic and German orders concerning the Jews and enabling the deportation of the majority of the 570 Jews living in Fiume and surrounding areas, 412 of whom were deported to Auschwitz, a higher percentage than in any Italian city. The matter is currently the topic of scholarly debate. A national commission of historians recommended by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation in Milan, the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the Centro Primo Levi NY is conducting a comprehensive review of the documents.
Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence (1991) is a novel by Martin Amis. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1991. It is notable partly because the events occur in a reverse chronology, with time passing in reverse and the main character becoming younger and younger during the novel.
If Not Now, When? is a novel by the Italian author Primo Levi, first published in 1982 under the title Se non ora, quando?
If This Is a Man is a memoir by Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi, first published in 1947. It describes his arrest as a member of the Italian anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War, and his incarceration in the Auschwitz concentration camp (Monowitz) from February 1944 until the camp was liberated on 27 January 1945.
Monowitz was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (Arbeitslager) run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of its existence, Monowitz was a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp; from November 1943 it and other Nazi subcamps in the area were jointly known as "Auschwitz III-subcamps". In November 1944 the Germans renamed it Monowitz concentration camp, after the village of Monowice where it was built, in the annexed portion of Poland. SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Heinrich Schwarz was commandant from November 1943 to January 1945.
Muselmann was a term used amongst prisoners of German Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust of World War II to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation and exhaustion, as well as those who were resigned to their impending death. The Muselmann prisoners exhibited severe emaciation and physical weakness, an apathetic listlessness regarding their own fate, and unresponsiveness to their surroundings owing to their barbaric treatment.
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.
Auschwitz Report (2006) is a non-fiction report on the Auschwitz extermination camp by Primo Levi and Leonardo de Benedetti.
The Black Hole of Auschwitz is a collection of essays by the Italian author Primo Levi. Originally published under the Italian title L'asimmetria e la vita it has two distinct halves. The first half, The Black Hole of Auschwitz is a collection of essays, often prefaces to other books, which make a plea against Holocaust denial. The second half, Other People's Trades, is a mixture of essays on a wide variety of subjects. All of these works were collected together in the production of the Italian anthology of Levi's works, Opere, in 1997.
The Truce is a 1997 film directed by Francesco Rosi, written by Tonino Guerra, based on Primo Levi's memoir, The Truce. The film deals with Primo Levi's experiences returning to Italy in 1945 after the Red Army liberated the concentration camp at Auschwitz during the Second World War. This was Rosi's final film before his death in 2015.
Leonardo de Benedetti was an Italian Jew and physician who was interned in the Auschwitz concentration camp from February 1944 until its liberation in January 1945. After the end of the Second World War he and fellow inmate Primo Levi wrote Auschwitz Report, a factual report of conditions inside the camp.
Lorenzo Perrone (1904–1952) born in Fossano, Province of Cuneo, Italy, was one of a group of skilled Italian bricklayers working under contract to the Boetti company, who were transferred to Auschwitz according to the camp expansion plan.
Staryya Darohi is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus, and the administrative center of Staryya Darohi District.
Anne-Lise Stern was a French psychoanalyst and Holocaust survivor.
