Paul Calvert spoke to Teresa Wontor-Cichy about conditions at the camp, experimentation on prisoners and how Holocaust survivors have been involved with the museum.

Teresa: There are different records, depending first of all on the period. There were some periods, especially since mid-May 1944, when they started to send here the mass transport of Hungarian Jews, so the numbers were very high. Then there were periods that there were no transports admitted for the camp, or very small transports, like some groups from the local nearby prisons. They were registered for the camp, so they were not sent for the gas chamber. We need to take the daily records to refer to this numbers. It's very difficult to say how many per day, because it all depended on the war situation.

Paul: And were people experimented on when they came here?

Teresa: Some of the German scientists were already involved in different projects from before the war. Some places were even being isolated for their purposes, like here in Auschwitz I, block number 10, was the station for Professor Carl Clauberg and Doctor Horst Schumann and they worked on a sterilisation project. Then a few of the physicians here were in touch with the pharmacy industry and some companies were experimenting and testing some of the products here. Then Birkenau was a place where many of the physicians were experimenting; the notorious was Josef Mengele. The first victims of his experiments were the Roma people. Then when the mass transports of the Jews were still coming and were being selected on the unloading platform he was also taking the victims from the new arrivals of Jewish people.

Paul: Did anyone ever escape from here?

Teresa: The prisoners were trying to use all occasions to get out of this camp. As the first brought here, they were active in different types of organised groups, so even being here in these extraordinary conditions they were trying to set some links between them. As long as they get out of the camp for some duty's, transportation, or something similar, simply work outside the camp, they were trying to disappear, to find a shelter to wait until the hunting squad stopped searching. However the administration of the camp started to use collective responsibility, so for one escapee for example, 10 could be locked in the starvation sell and die because somebody was trying to escape, or some prisoners as a revenge could be hung in public execution.

The historians were trying to answer how many and the number given is roughly 700 people were trying to escape. Out of the three major camps and the 40 smaller sub camps approximately 140 were the lucky escapees. People belonged to some organisation, so once they reached their friends living not far away from here, they could find a shelter for several months. They could be supplied with false documentation and simply wait until the Germans stopped searching, but everything was very risky, as the prisoners were recorded with all the details so they could be later traced quite easily by the German police.

Paul: How did people look after themselves and keep themselves happy while they were here at the camp?

Teresa: That was very individual and as many survivors as there are, there is that many different stories. Everything depended on how the person was; their mental and physical condition. Sometimes the people were physically rather weak, but they were having this ability for different skills and different type of work, or they were having this great luck to have friendly people around them and together making an informal group, so they could help each other to keep going for another day. It was not anything sophisticated, it was just to keep for the next day, the next roll call, the next going out for work, or the next coming back from work.

The longer they managed to stay in the camp, they were trying to use any skills they had, even the little knowledge of carpentry or mechanics, just to bring them a little bit more safety and a little bit more perspective for surviving the camp.

Paul: Once somebody arrived at the camp how long was their life expectancy?

Teresa: That was very individual. In some research and also some of the survivors are saying, that taking into account all the numbers, we may say that the average would be three months. However sometimes people were strong and healthy with very good skills like building, construction and mechanics. They were dying very shortly because for example, they were terribly beaten because they couldn't fit themselves so easily into the camp. Some had lower chances to survive, for example there were teenagers, so people at the age where they should be at school learning something and not really having practical capabilities.

Paul: When some people had arrived here on trains, if they were disabled, were they gassed straight away?

Teresa: No, the only people who were sent to the gas chambers were Jewish people. In terms of Roma they were being kept in Birkenau in Family camp and they were kept in terrible conditions, so most of them died because of epidemics and because of starvation. Those who survived until 2nd August 44, they were finally killed in the gas chamber as the Germans were just liquidating the camp. Not everybody was brought here to be killed in the gas chamber. Auschwitz first of all for the Germans was the place where they were to use the prisoners as slave labour and that's why they were taking the young healthy Jews to be the prisoners and not to send them all to the gas chambers. Some of them were to be the slave labour because the German economy, being involved in war, needed slave labour.

Paul: How many people visit the museum today?