The town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz). Sightseeing
Oświęcim is a small industrial town of around 40,000. The camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was established on its outskirts, its name taken from the German name of the town. The 800 years of history of Oświęcim/Auschwitz, in the Middle Ages the administrative centre of an autonomous duchy, have since World War II been eclipsed entirely by the shadow of the camp’s history.
There are several reasons why a look around the town of Oświęcim may prove a valuable supplement to the programme of an excursion to the Auschwitz-Birkenau site of memory:
- Until 1939 the town had a population of around 12,000, half of whom were Jews; the fate of Oświęcim’s own Jewish community exemplifies the broader history of the Jews of Eastern Europe.
The best place to learn about the history of the Oświęcim Jewish community is in Auschwitz Jewish Centre, which operates in the former Chevra Lomdei Misznayot Synagogue. The Jewish Centre also offers screenings of a film about the town and its Jewish residents in several languages. A Jewish cemetery has also survived, which is certainly worth a visit.
- Nazi Germany planned to turn Oświęcim into a major industrial centre. During the occupation, the IG Farben concern used slave labour supplied by the camp inmates to construct a vast chemical plant on the outskirts of the town, that was to produce synthetic rubber and synthetic fuels, exploiting local coal deposits. The name of this plant was Buna Werke Auschwitz. Specially for the needs of the construction of the Buna plant a third camp, Auschwitz III – Monowitz, was established. The history of the prisoners of Auschwitz III is a prime example of the Nazis’ policy of “Vernichtung durch Arbeit” (“Extermination through work”). The huge site of the former IG Farben works is now occupied by a chemical factory called Syntos, situated at the opposite end of town from KL Auschwitz. To this day a few indications of the existence of the former camp remain in evidence, and there is a memorial dedicated to its victims nearby.
- Pursuant to the German occupiers’ plans, the town’s Polish population was to be resettled in its entirety, and Oświęcim was to become a settlement area for the ethnic German (Volksdeutsche) population resettled from USSR territory and the conquered countries of Eastern Europe. During the war a residential estate was built in the town for the German workers and specialists employed on the construction of the IG Farben Buna Werke plant; this was to have been the first part of a future model Nazi town inhabited only by Germans.
- Contemporary Oświęcim is a typical small Polish industrial town. A stroll around both its prewar parts and modern residential areas offers an insight into contemporary life in the Polish provinces. This is a story not directly connected with the death camp, but one that brings together many themes in the town’s recent history, such as the fate of its Jewish community, the postwar processes of industrialisation and settlement in the town of people driven out of their previous homes by the war, the story of the struggle to have a parish church built in an intentionally atheised town in the Communist period – all these themes are direct consequences of World War II. The history of the town in the postcommunist period is equally fascinating. Its problems and successes are a reflection of the situation faced by many Polish towns in a time of system transformation.
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