The Structure of the MuseumThe Museum is engaged in a variety of activities. It preserves and secures post-camp objects and buildings, as well as acquiring, studying, and providing access to documents and other items of historical value. It also collects various sorts of art associated with Auschwitz. More than 200 people, employed in several departments, work in the Museum. They work, holidays excluded, from 8:00 AM through 2:00 PM, Monday through Friday THE ARCHIVES
The present archival collection, consisting for the most part of material owned by the Museum, includes:
Archival materials may be can be made available to researchers
after prior notification of the research subject and date of arrival.
Persons affiliated to institutions or associations, university-level
students, and other interested persons are required to submit
a letter of recommendation. Archival materials are not available
for loan. When a legitimate need is demonstrated, the Archives
will make copies or photographs of materials, for a fee. THE COMPUTER SECTION Established in 1989, the Section assembles and compiles data bases related to the documents in the Museum Archives. The Section is also engaged in the computerization of the Museum departments. The goal is a single integrated system for exchanging and processing information. THE OFFICE FOR INFORMATION ON FORMER PRISONERS Information about the fate of former Asuchwitz concentration camp prisoners can be obtained either in person or by correspondence (write to the Museum address and add "Archivum"). It should be borne in mind that the Germans destroyed the majority of the camp documents before the liberation of the camp by the Russians. It therefore frequently turns out that no trace of the people deported to Auschwitz can be found on paper. This is especially true of the people whom the Germans sent directly to the as chambers, the overwhelming majority of the victims of Auschwitz concentration camp. THE COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT
The historical collections include:
• several thousand victims' shoes; • about two tons of hair shorn from the heads of the victims of the gas chambers. • The artistic collections include more than 6,000 paintings, sculptures, and graphics works made in the camp or executed after the war, including works by contemporary artists. • The collections are available to researchers, historians, students, journalists, and film and television crews from Poland and abroad; talks are given on the Department's collections and its functions. See some of the paintings by Jan Komski, an Auschwitz survivor. THE LIBRARY The holdings are strictly matched to the nature of the Museum. The library contains books, journals, and maps dealing with the history of the Second World War, the Third Reich, the occupation, and the ordeal of the prisons and the concentration camps, with particular emphasis on the history of Auschwitz concentration camp. The library holdings add up to over 20,000 volumes, more than 2,500 journals, and several dozen maps. Interested persons may use the reading room in the library. THE PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT
This department is concerned with the protection and preservation
of the extensive grounds and numerous post-camp buildings at the
site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, as well as the post-camp
collections. It cooperates with specialists, experts, and consultants
from Poland and abroad. Some of the work is done by the Museum
preservation staff, and some by specialized outside firms whose
work is supervised and coordinated by the Museum preservationist.
This department also carries out renovations and repairs as well
as other work connected with the functioning of the Museum. The scholarly specialists working here specialize in subjects connected with the history of Auschwitz concentration camp. As experts and consultants in the field, they work on the scientific study of the Museum holdings, carry on research, hold seminars and deliver lectures to teachers, train museum guides, and cooperate with other departments in teaching, publishing, and promoting general knowledge about the Museum. Important publications by historians from this department include Danuta Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle, Franciszek Piper's Prisoner Labor in Auschwitz Concentration Camp and the same author's How Many People Perished in Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Andrzej Strzelecki's The Evacuation, Liquidation, and Liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and the collective work Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp, a popular study reviewing all the important issues in the functioning of the camp. The work done so far is capped off by the five-volume Auschwitz 1940-45: Central Issues in the History of the Camp, a detailed treatment of specific aspects of Auschwitz concentration camp (the founding and expansion of the camp, the labor and life of the prisoners, extermination, the resistance movement, liberation, and a calendar of the most important events). SECTION FOR FORMER PRISONERS' AFFAIRS The section coordinates the Museum's work in making contact and cooperating with former prisoners. Section staff members deal with editing accounts by former prisoners, keeping card files with the names of people deported to the camp on the basis of postwar archival material (reports, memoirs, testimony, etc.) and carrying out surveys of the former prisoners. The documents collected and prepared by the section go into the Archives. The section directs and coordinates the work connected with compiling a name and thematic index based on postwar material. It also searches the archives and carries out scholarly and educational work. THE EXHIBITION DEPARTMENT
To the left - part of the exhibition titled "Auschwitz - A Crime
Against Humanity," which was shown at UN Headquarters in 1985
and 1994, as well as in several US cities and European countries
(Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Belgium). In the USA, the exhibition
was sponsored by the World Congress of Jews and the United Jewish
Appeal. The Education Department works to promote knowledge about the
history of Auschwitz concentration camp on the grounds of the
Museum and elsewhere. The basic activities of the department are
carried out in cooperation with school students and their teachers,
with Polish and foreign institutions, and with research institutes
and youth study groups. For several years there has been a systematic
exchange of study groups between the Museum and the Yad Vashem
Institute, for museum staff and teachers from Poland and Israel An important area of activity is the service offered to Museum visitors by the VISITORS SERVICES SECTION, which offers guided tours and records and analyzes the flow of visitors. THE PUBLICATIONS AND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT This department publishes and distributes studies connected with the history of Auschwitz concentration camp and the activities of the Museum, as well as cooperating with other publishers in Poland and abroad. To date, the Department has published 420 titles in a total of approximately 7,000,000 copies. These are scholarly studies, source material, essays and memoirs, works of fiction, and poetry, as well as albums, posters, postcards, video casettes with materials on Auschwitz, and so on. |
The most important tasks of this department include initiating,
preparing, assembling, organizing and supervising the permanent
and temporary exhibitions that are presented at the Museum and
elsewhere (in Poland and abroad). In the more than fifty years
that it has been in existence, the Museum has organized almost
300 temporary and traveling exhibitions which have been seen by
more than fifteen million people in Poland and in Austria, Britain,
the former Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan,
the Netherlands, the former Soviet Union, Switzerland, Sweden,
the United States, and other countries.