The award in the category “scientific publications” in the first Museum Book of the Year competition was presented to the publication “Auschwitz. A human monograph” by Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Director.

The aim of the competition, organised by the National Institute of Museums and Collections Protection and the History and Culture Foundation, is to honour and promote the best publications produced by museums whose first editions appeared on the market in 2021 and 2022.

“Auschwitz. A Human Monograph” is the first such in-depth attempt to read into the human emotions inside the camp. Piotr Cywiński has analysed more than 250 books with memoirs of survivors of the German Nazi camp Auschwitz, as well as a huge amount of hitherto unpublished archival material with their accounts.

The publication is divided into more than thirty chapters, each devoted to a separate topic. These include “Initial shock”, “Loneliness”, “Death” “Hunger”, “Fellowship,” “Empathy”, “Decency”, “Struggle and resistance”, “Culture and science”, “Fear” or “Hope.”

“In post-war historiography, the history of Auschwitz is most often presented through the prism of facts, figures and dates. Establishing data required several decades of analysis of the sometimes scarce archival resources and very arduous historical research. This is undoubtedly a major achievement of several generations of historians. I do not intend to disavow it at all. It is important, perhaps even fundamental in a way, to know exactly what happened and when. Particularly in view of that part of human history which has been and continues to be denied and hypocritical. But Auschwitz cannot be fully encapsulated in dates, numbers and facts. The history of Auschwitz is above all an enormous human drama, whose individual dimension escapes chronology, and takes on a dramatic life of its own alongside great numbers, important dates and historical facts”, wrote Piotr Cywiński in the introduction to the publication.

Adrian Andrzejewski