Description
The term "sport" in KL Auschwitz was distorted by using it to refer to the exhausting exercises combined with the drill and singing applied on a mass scale. This form of sport, referred to after the war as pseudo-sport, was usually a way of enforcing discipline and punishing prisoners.
However, among people deported by the Germans to Auschwitz, there were pre-war sportsmen and sportswomen: Olympians and national champions. Some prisoners had also the opportunity to practice some sports in the camp. These included wrestling and boxing, as well as games such as soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Mind sports were also popular among prisoners, particularly chess, but also card games.
Renata Koszyk, an educator at the Auschwitz Memorial and curator of the exhibition dedicated to this topic, talks about sport and sportspeople in Auschwitz.
Josef Mengele was a doctor of medicine and philosophy, an assistant to Prof. Otmar von Verschuer in the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, member of the Nazi Party and the SS.
In Auschwitz, he was the chief physician in the Roma and Sinti Family Camp in Birkenau,...
Published 11/29/24
Prisoners of Auschwitz were able to send various types of illegal messages—both within the camp and outside the barbed wire fences. Some were short letters addressed to family members; others were messages and reports for underground resistance organizations. Dr. Wojciech Płosa, the head of the...
Published 10/31/24