Born in Auschwitz

An exhibition by Alwin Meyer

Children in Auschwitz, that is the darkest stain in a deeply dark history.

Between 1940 and 1945, more than 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Even in the early stages of the camp, the living conditions for the prisoners were such that none and none of them were to leave the death camp alive again. "The supreme purpose and primary objective of the Auschwitz concentration camp from its establishment in the spring of 1940 until the last day of its existence in January 1945 was extermination. All other tasks and goals, such as the exploitation of prisoners' labor, the robbery of victims' belongings, the use of corpses or the performance of medical experiments, were of secondary importance in comparison," Franciszek Piper, a historian and longtime employee of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, summarizes.

Among the prisoners were also 232,000 infants, children and adolescents up to 17 years of age who were deported to the Auschwitz death camp with their families or alone or were born there under unimaginable conditions. 216,300 of them were Jews, 11,000 were Sinti and Roma, 3,120 were non-Jewish Poles, 1,140 were Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians, and children and adolescents of other nations.

When the concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, only 750 of them were still alive. 521 of them were 14 years old and younger, including 60 newborns. Despite intensive medical care, many of the children and young people did not survive their liberation for long, dying as a result of Auschwitz.

Under the title "Born in Auschwitz", 31 panels with impressive documents, photos and texts tell of the lives and deaths of the children and their mothers. The surviving children bear the traces of what they suffered on their bodies and in their souls for a lifetime. The prisoner's number tattooed on the forearm or, in the case of the youngest, on the thigh or buttocks, grew with them. And just like this, Auschwitz is always there, day and night: the memory of the separation from parents and siblings, of the omnipresent death, of the experiments carried out on them, of the constant hunger and the longing for family, a warm feather bed and for security.

The children of Auschwitz had to fight their way into life with an incomparable will. They sought and found a new life, they went to school, studied, married, had children, pursued their professions and created a new home. But Auschwitz never really let go of them.

And as they grew older, the memories of what they had experienced came and come back with even greater force. The mother who was murdered, the father, the sister.... Everything lives a lifetime and beyond in and with them and the generations to come. And so they experienced again and again decades later: Auschwitz could catch up with them at any time. Representing all the others, one declares: "No matter how far you run away. Auschwitz never lets go of you and your family."

The author of the exhibition is journalist and curator Alwin Meyer. For more than 45 years, he has searched the world for the few surviving children of Auschwitz. He has empathetically spoken with them and gained their trust. Many told him for the first time about camp life, about a childhood in which death was always present and never natural. The exhibition "Born in Auschwitz" will be on display from March 3 to April 26 in the foyer of the Robert Havemann Hall in the House of Democracy and Human Rights at Greifswalder Strasse 4 in Berlin. The exhibition can be visited weekdays from 10 am to 5 pm, admission is free.

Web: geboren-in-auschwitz.info

Organiser: Stiftung Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte