Auschwitz Exhibition

Ilse Geuze left her parents’ farm in Austria to attend a school for children with disabilities. In December 1940 her parents received a letter from the director of Hartheim Castle informing them that Ilse had been admitted to the institution, and that no visits or phone calls were allowed under the rules of the Minister of Defense. In January 1941, her parents received an urn holding the ashes of eleven-year-old Ilse.... #NotLongAgoNotFarAway

A tiny tin ring has little or no monetary value and yet, to the young woman who hid and held it close throughout her time at Auschwitz, it was priceless. Every single aspect of life at the camp was designed to destroy a person, which makes any effort to assert your own identity, your sense of self, all the more remarkable. In 1939, when Zdenka Fantlová was 18, she met and fell in love with Arno Levit. They lived in the Czech city of Pilsen.... In 1942 Arno learned he was to be transported to the East. Just before he left, he made an engagement ring out of a piece of tin and gave it to Zdenka promising they would find each other after the war. Two years later Zdenka was deported to Auschwitz, passed the selection, and lined up for registration. Another woman in the line was discovered concealing a ring of her own, taken away and beaten. Zdenka had a choice drop her tin ring on the ground, or slip it under her tongue. She took a chance and the ring went undiscovered. It is so precious that Zdenka carries it with her to this day and, understandably, couldn’t bear to be parted with it; but she kindly agreed for this exact replica to be made for our exhibition. This story doesn’t have a Hollywood ending although Zdenka survived Auschwitz, a death march and the horrors of Bergen Belsen - she never saw Arno again. However, would she have endured if he hadn’t made and given her a ring and with it the even greater gift of hope? #NotLongAgoNotFarAway

December, 1943 | Siemens-Schuckert Electric employs 40 female prisoners in its newly built plant in Bobrek near #Auschwitz.

The selection procedure carried out on the ramps was as follows: families were divided after leaving the train cars and all the people were lined up in two columns. The men and older boys were in one column, and the women and children of both sexes in the other. Next, the people were led to the camp doctors and other camp functionaries conducting selection. They judged the people standing before them on sight and, sometimes eliciting a brief declaration as to their age and o...ccupation, decided whether they would live or die. Age was one of the principal criteria for selection. As a rule, all children below 16 years of age (from 1944, below 14) and the elderly were sent to die. As a statistical average, about 20% of the people in transports were chosen for labor. They were led into the camp, registered as prisoners, and assigned the next numbers in the various series. Of the approximately 1.1 million Jews deported to Auschwitz, about 200 thousand were chosen in this way. The remainder, about 900 thousand people, were killed in the gas chambers.

Eighteen-year-old Hanoch Kolman was deported to Auschwitz in the fall of 1942. He was put to work in Auschwitz-Birkenau and forced to maintain and repair the brick ovens of the crematoria. The standard prisoner outfit gave little protection in the cold Polish winter. In order to help him keep warm, a friend placed a lining in his cap. Collection of the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, gift of Henry Coleman, in Auschwitz Exhibition.