Auschwitz Promises Anonymity to Nazi Descendants in Return for Documents

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
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Explainer: What the Israeli occupation of Gaza would mean for Israelis and Palestinians
-
Yiddish אויסשטעלונג אין אונגערן — רמזים פֿון הילצערנער שיל פֿון 18טן יאָרהונדערטExhibit in Hungary displays remnants of 18th century wooden synagogue
אינעם 18טן יאָרהונדערט איז די קהילה אין נאַזנאַ געווען די צווייט גרעסטע אין גאַנץ טראַנסילוואַניע.
-
News Is the crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism the new Red Scare?
-
Opinion Trump’s cuts are a war on Jewish literature, thought and history itself
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.