As the most notorious death camp set up by the Nazis, the name Auschwitz is synonymous with fear, horror, and genocide. The camp was established in 1940 in the suburbs of Oswiecim, in German-occupied Poland, and later named Auschwitz by the Germans.
Originally intended to be a concentration camp for Poles, by 1942 Auschwitz had a second function as the largest Nazi death camp and the main center for the mass extermination of Europe’s Jews.
An estimated 1.1 million people perished in Auschwitz—one million of them Jews.
The following texts are eyewitness accounts of Centropa interviewees who – against all odds – survived Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Polish Jewish Source Book, compiled and edited by Centropa in Vienna, is the fourth in a series of Centropa Readers on the great Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe.
With essays, timelines and general histories on prewar and postwar Poland, this volume also contains interviews with eighteen Jews who were deported to and survived Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In this volume we offer a new feature: The History of Twentieth Century Polish Jewry in Forty Two Photographs, each annotated by one of the sixty-five Polish Jews Centropa interviewed over the past decade.
How to get the Polish-Jewish Sourcebook
The sourcebook is not available online, but you can order the print version from us. It contains Prewar/Wartime/Post-war interview excerpts, essays on Polish Jewish life, lists of important dates and figures in Polish and Polish-Jewish history, and costs $17.95 each + shipping to order.
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