70 years ago, on 27 January 1945, Soviet soldiers entered the Nazi German concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The soldiers saw about seven thousand exhausted and ailing prisoners, among them several hundred children. Despite the medical care, which was promptly offered to the prisoners, many of them soon died due to their condition. Those who survived, delivered a testimony of Auschwitz-Birkenau as a harrow beyond comprehension.
To commemorate the 70. anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau, the IPN Cracow division in cooperation with TVP Kraków released a documentary which presents the investigation led in Poland relating to the concentration camp and the annihilation of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. The movie includes previously unknown details connected with that investigation.
In 2011, the IPN reopened the investigation of crimes committed by Germans in Auschwitz-Birkenau. As the longest investigation in the history of post-war Poland, it evoked many questions. Part of the public opinion was puzzled, why a detailed investigations in being carried out in a case, which seems completely evident.
What many people are not aware of is the fact, that during the Communist period in Poland it was not easy to prosecute German crimes despite the propagation of anti-fascist slogans. German criminals were effectively prosecuted only few years after the war, in response to the expectations of the Polish society. Only a part of those brought to court during the Polish People's Republic were sentenced. A similar situation was taking place in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some war criminals grew old in peace, at times holding high positions in public administration. The lack of clear judicial decisions in the next decades led to manipulating facts and attempts to relativise the crimes of the Third Reich, diminishing the scale of German responsibility for the crimes committed on the territory of occupied Poland.
Several years after the war, in free Poland, the need to continue the investigation remains. It is particularly important to display all the facts and circumstances of the crime in order to prevent such genocide from happening again. In the course of the current investigation, the IPN managed to compile a new, wider list of the camp staff, it also attempts to bring the living KL Auschwitz-Birkenau criminals to justice.
The documentary ”Auschwitz-Birkenau – The Anatomy of a Crime” was directed by Beata Kołaczyk. For more information, please contact Dorota.Kalita@ipn.gov.pl