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Poland puts Auschwitz-Birkenau staff database online Poland puts Auschwitz-Birkenau staff database online
(about 2 hours later)
Poland has published the first online database featuring the names and personal details of nearly 10,000 staff who ran the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.Poland has published the first online database featuring the names and personal details of nearly 10,000 staff who ran the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.
The database, which the Institute of National Remembrance said contained 9,686 names, is part of a wide-ranging project that will cover the staff of other death and concentration camps that Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during the second world war, the IPN chairman, Jaroslaw Szarek, told reporters in Kraków. The state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said that the SS KL Auschwitz Garrison list was based on data from archives in Poland, Germany, Austria, the US and, to a limited extent, Russia, where archives remain mostly inaccessible.
About 25,000 names have already been gathered so far. The database, which the IPN said contained 9,686 names, is part of a wide-ranging project that will cover the staff of other death and concentration camps that Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland during the second world war, the IPN chairman, Jarosław Szarek, told reporters in Kraków.
The database, available in five languages, “is a tool to fight lies”, Szarek said. “We’re not expressing an opinion, we’re presenting the cold, hard facts.” The work of historian Aleksander Lasik, the institute and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, it is based on a list that Lasik built during more than 30 years of archival research.
Szarek said the project was also in part intended to curb the use by foreign media of the phrase “Polish death camps” to refer to sites built and run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland. “The world justice system has failed and I’m doing what a historian should do: expose the responsible individuals as war criminals,” Lasik said.
Up to 200 former guards at the German death camp could still be living, he claimed.
The online list of Auschwitz guards and commanders is available in Polish, English and German. Most entries include date and place of birth, nationality, education, military service and party affiliation. Some have a photograph attached. Judicial documents are included when the person stood trial in Poland.
“Nazi hunter” Efraim Zuroff said the publication of the names was “very important and the right thing to do” and could have “practical implications” if criminal investigators in Germany were unaware of some of the names on the list.
About 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed at the camp, which was built in 1940 in the southern city of Oświęcim in occupied Poland. An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitz’s victims were children.About 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed at the camp, which was built in 1940 in the southern city of Oświęcim in occupied Poland. An estimated 232,000 of Auschwitz’s victims were children.
The launch of the database came days after the museum at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp urged Germans and Austrians to hand over any material that could shed light on the “motivations and mentality” of its wartime staff.The launch of the database came days after the museum at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp urged Germans and Austrians to hand over any material that could shed light on the “motivations and mentality” of its wartime staff.
The museum’s director, Piotr Cywiński, said it was seeking more information about the death camp’s staff as part of efforts to “better understand the influence of populist mechanisms of hatred for human beings”.The museum’s director, Piotr Cywiński, said it was seeking more information about the death camp’s staff as part of efforts to “better understand the influence of populist mechanisms of hatred for human beings”.
The database also presents 350 verdicts against camp staff in war crimes trials after the war, but the documents are yet to be translated.The database also presents 350 verdicts against camp staff in war crimes trials after the war, but the documents are yet to be translated.
The list of names was compiled in large part by Prof Aleksander Lasik, who began his work in 1982 by identifying the Nazi SS staff that ran Auschwitz. Cywiński said the Nazis destroyed many files as they fled the camp toward the end of the war.
“We have more documents about the camp’s prisoners than about its staff,” Cywiński added.