Auschwitz Jewish Center to Feature Testimony in Permanent Exhibit

Visitors to the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, Poland, will view USC Shoah Foundation testimony in the center’s permanent exhibit beginning in May.

The Holocaust survivors featured in the exhibit all grew up in Oświęcim, the town that housed the Auschwitz camp system during the Holocaust, and are included in USC Shoah Foundation’s online exhibit Born in the city that became Auschwitz. Mark Bader, Lola Fuchs, Jacob Geldwert and others describe Oświęcim’s rich Jewish life and prosperity as an industrial center before the war. All went on to survive multiple concentration camps and moved to the United States and Canada after the war.

Excerpts from their testimonies will be displayed in the Auschwitz Jewish Center’s permanent museum exhibition about the 500-year history of Jews in Oświęcim and on its interactive website Oshpitzin, which includes video clips, a timeline, an interactive map and photographs of town residents and landmarks.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center opened in 2000 and includes the museum, an education center that offers programs for residents and students, and the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, the only Jewish house of prayer in Oświęcim not destroyed by the Nazis.