Auschwitz Promises Anonymity to Nazi Descendants in Return for Documents
By Lilly Maier February 6, 2017
Corrects to show that the museum is offering anonymity to the descendants of Auschwitz staff, not the staff themselves, whose names are already public.
The Auschwitz Museum is asking Germans and Austrians to donate Nazi documents about the death camp and it’s making a big concession in return.
It’s promising to grant the donors anonymity — and a guarantee their identities won’t be shared. The names of Auschwitz staff are already online, but descendants might not want to publicize that aspect of their family history.
“Without a comprehensive analysis and understanding of the motivation and mentality of the perpetrators, our efforts to wisely counsel future generations will only remain intuitive,” said Museum Director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński in an appeal published on the museum’s website.
After the war, only a few sets of photos and private letters from SS staff members were found, alongside some single diaries.
To change that, the museum is asking for any documents, photos, personal letters or diaries that used to belong to SS officers or other people working at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
“I am absolutely convinced that only a mutual effort can lead to a fuller understanding of the mechanisms of hatred,” Director Cywiński said. “Analyses from the perspective of the victims … cannot fully serve the purpose.”
The museum is reaching out to newspapers in Germany and Austria to publicize the cause.
Lilly Maier is a news intern at the Forward. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @lillymmaier
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
