Auschwitz: Voices of 44 Survivors

In Occupied Europe, Jews were suddenly persecuted, hunted, and deported for who they were. Many were sent to Auschwitz, Nazi Germany’s largest concentration and extermination camp.

At Auschwitz, families were torn apart. Prisoners were shaved and tattooed as smoke rose from chimneys. What became of the elderly and children taken from the Holocaust trains?

Life in Auschwitz meant forced labor, hunger, disease, and constant violence. Amid despair and death, prisoners struggled each day to survive against impossible odds.

The concentration camp deportees became the rare witnesses to mass extermination.

In 2006, survivors recounted their memories of Auschwitz. How does one escape such horror, rebuild a life, and ensure the memory of the Holocaust endures for future generations?