Commemoration

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum endeavors, through its research, educational, and exhibition work, to commemorate all victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp by pointing out not only historical facts and figures, but also specific individuals with their names and life stories. This is also the purpose of the data base created from the partially preserved records of Auschwitz prisoners. Doing so, we wish to address the concerns of all those for whom it is important to preserve the memory of the victims of Nazism.

About the available data

The online data presented here comes from two of dozens of extant corpuses of camp documents: Death Books and Record Books of the so-called Gypsy Family Camp.

We should remember that the Nazis destroyed most of the documents they created and that a list with the names of all Auschwitz victims does not exist. If the name of a person looked for does not appear in this database there is still a chance it is included in other documents, which are not online yet. To find out more you should contact the Office for Information on Former Prisoners.

Death Books

This data base uses the partially preserved Death Books (Sterbebücher) of Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoners. The 46 volumes of political department (camp Gestapo) record the deaths of almost 69,000 prisoners who were registered in the camp and who died between July 29, 1941 and December 31, 1943. Their names have been entered in the data base.

Limited number of records

When using the data base, please remember that the death certificates cover only registered prisoners who died in the period mentioned in the previous paragraph. The overwhelming majority of victims, mostly Jewish, perished in the gas chambers immediately after arrival, without being entered in the camp records, and without their deaths being noted in the German documents (see FAQ - frequently asked questions).

Sample death certificate

Below is the death certificate issued by the Politische Abteilung (camp Gestapo) for Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner Janusz Pogonowski. Prisoner no. 253, Pogonowski (who went by the name “Skrzetuski” in the camp) arrived on the first transport of political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów on June 14, 1940.

He was an active member of the underground camp resistance. He was hanged during a public execution, along with eleven other prisoners from the surveyors labor detail, on July 19, 1943. This was a reprisal for the escape of four prisoners from this labor detail and for contacts with civilians outside the camp.

His heroic behavior at the time of his execution remained etched in the memory of the prisoners. Without waiting for camp commandant Rudolf Höss to finish reading out the sentence, Janusz Pogonowski kicked the stool out from under his feet and hanged himself. He was 21.

The death certificates contain the following fields:

Death certificate of Janusz Pogonowski

• Certificate no.
• date of issue
• first and last names
• denomination
• place of residence
• date of death, time of death, place of death – always Kasernestrasse Auschwitz (Barracks Street, Auschwitz), not the camp (!)
• date and place of birth
• father’s first and last names
• mother’s first and last names
• spouse’s first and last name
• pronouncing physician
• date
• signature
• reason of death (fictitious)

The “denomination” field in the death certificate of Janusz Pogonowski reads “Katholisch”, other documents may contain one of the following religious affiliations:

• Bibelforscher - Jehovah’s Witness
böhmisch-mährische Religion - Czech-Moravian religion
• buddhistisch - Buddhist
• evangelisch - Ewangelical-Lutheran
• glaubenslos - Atheist
• gottgläubig - Believes in God
• grekokatholisch - Greek Catholic
• griechischorthodox - Greek Orthodox
• husit - Hussite
• katholisch - Catholic
• konfessionslos - Unaffiliate
• mosaisch - Mosaic (i.e., Jewish)
• moslemisch - Muslim
• orthodox - Eastern Orthodox
• religionslos - Agnostic
• russischorthodox - Russian Orthodox
• unbekannte Religion - Religion unknown

An analysis of the “denomination” item shows that the majority of the registered prisoners in the Death Books were Roman Catholic (31814 persons - 46,8%) and Jewish (“Mosaic”) (29125 persons - 42,8%). Others belonged to the following denominations: Greek Orthodox (3,6%), Evangelical-Lutheran (3,4%), and Greek Catholic (1,6%). This item is left blank on 1,275 (1,9%) death certificates.

The Gypsy Family Camp Record Books

The Nazis entered information on the Roma prisoners in sector BIIe of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp in two Record Books. The origins of this so-called Zigeunerfamilienlager are connected with the deportation by the Nazis of the first transport of Roma from Germany on February 26, 1943.

A total of 20,943 Roma from various German-occupied countries are entered in the Books. They included 10,849 woman and girls and 10,094 men and boys. Over 10,000 of the people registered in the Books were children and young people aged under 15. Over 370 children were born in the camp; the Books note the death of 350 of them. It is estimated that at least 21,000 of the 23,000 Roma deported to Auschwitz were murdered.

The Polish political prisoner Tadeusz Joachimowski (no. 3720), assigned to be a “scribe” or “writer” in the “family camp,” secretly removed the Books from the prisoners’ scribe chamber in July 1944, just before the liquidation of the family camp on August 2, 1944. Joachimowski and two fellow prisoners buried the documents on the grounds of the family camp. The Books were dug up in 1949.

Fragment of the Gypsy Record Books

Terms used in “category”and “remarks” field

Data in the “category” field:

Entries in the “remarks” field:

Memorial Books

The Memorial Books include information on almost 60 thousand Poles deported to Auschwitz. The contents are based on partially extant archival documents and correspondence with former prisoners and their relatives.

This data is the fruit of years of research by Museum staff and was published from 2000 to 2006 by the Museum in cooperation with the Auschwitz Preservation Society in three Memorial Books:

• Księga Pamięci. Transporty Polaków z Warszawy do KL Auschwitz 1940-1944 [Memorial Book: Transports of Poles from Warsaw to Auschwitz 1940-1944] was published in 2000. It contains approximately 26 thousand entries on men, women, and children from Warsaw and Mazovia, including some 13 thousand deported to Auschwitz from Pawiak prison after being arrested in street roundups or in operations against the resistance movement, and another 13 thousand deported from the transit camp in Pruszków after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.



• Księga Pamięci. Transporty Polaków do KL Auschwitz z Krakowa i innych miejscowości Polski południowej 1940-1944 [Memorial Book: Transports of Poles to Auschwitz from Cracow and Other Localities in Southern Poland 1940-1944] was published in 2002. It is dedicated to the approximately 18 thousand Poles sent to Auschwitz by the German Security Police from prisons in Cracow (Montelupich), Tarnów, Wiśnica Nowy, Rzeszów, Muszyna, Nowy Sącz, Sanok, Nowy Targ, and Zakopane. The list opens with the first transport of political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów, made up of 728 people, mostly young Polish patriots. The date of its arrival in Auschwitz, June 14, 1940, is regarded as the date when the camp was founded.



• Transporty Polaków do KL Auschwitz z Radomia i innych miejscowości Kielecczyzny 1940-1944 [Memorial Book: Transports of Poles to Auschwitz from Radom and Other Localities in the Kielce Region 1940-1944] was published in late 2005 and contains information on approximately 16 thousand Poles deported to Auschwitz from the occupation-era Radom District, mainly from the prisons in Radom, Kielce, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Piotrków, Końskie, Sandomierz, and Pińczów, where they were held after being arrested during roundups, searches, and entrapment operations on the streets, on trains, and at train stations.