The book ‘Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human’ by the Auschwitz Museum Director Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński is the first attempt on such a scale anywhere in the world to explore in such depth the human emotions experienced within the camp. Ten chapters from the book are now being released as a podcast series.
Collecting the material and working on the publication took almost six years. Piotr Cywiński analyzed more than 250 memoirs by Survivors of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp, as well as an extensive body of previously unpublished archival testimonies.
10 out of 30 chapters are presented in the podcast series:
Loneliness
Death
Inner Life
Emotions and Numbness
Friendship
Births
Laugh and Joy
Fear
Suicide
Hope
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast or YouTube. Links to all episodes on different platforms are available here:
auschwitz.org/en/museum/news…
The Polish-language version of the podcast series was created as a direct result of the distinction received by the Auschwitz Museum at the end of 2024 in the Janusz Majka Podcast of the Year competition. The award from the production company PLAC360 was presented to the ‘On Auschwitz’ podcast.
“The prize was the production of ten podcast episodes in a professional studio. We decided that this offered an opportunity to create a single coherent series. Because of its form, ‘Auschwitz. A Monograph on the Human’ was excellent material for the audio adaptation,” said Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka, Head of E-learning at the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
Each chapter of the book is, in a sense, an autonomous analysis of a single selected issue, often one particular emotion. At their core are quotes selected from the testimonies and memoirs of almost 450 Auschwitz Survivors, woven together through the author’s analysis.
“The polyphonic nature of this narrative made it particularly well suited to an audio adaptation. We wanted each excerpt from a Survivor’s testimony to retain an individual character. We concluded that these voices could be provided by the caretakers of the Memorial, Museum employees and guides,” said Andrzej Kacorzyk, Director of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
“As many as 132 people took part in the entire project. This allowed us to strengthen the distinctive polyphonic effect that is such an important part of the publication’s impact,” emphasized Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka.
In addition, with the support from English-speaking narrators and volunteers involved in producing the „On Auschwitz” podcast, the Museum independently produced an English-language version of the series.
All episodes of the On Auschwitz podcast are also available through the Museum’s English-language podcast page, as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the Museum’s YouTube channel.