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: The statistics for the last year are over one million. Most of the visitors are young people, students and the majority are Polish students and polish visitors. Then for the last year, the second group are the visitors from United Kingdom, then from the United States, Italy, Germany, Israel, Spain, France, South Korea, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Belgium, China, Russia, Portugal, Denmark, Romanian, Singapore, Finland, Brazil, Croatia, Switzerland and other countries.

Paul: Do you get many people coming from Israel?

Teresa: Yes we do. They are mainly organised groups of students and they participate in visits to Poland. As well as Auschwitz they also visit some other sites connected with Jewish history and Jewish life in Poland, which existed before the Second World War.

Paul: And when the camp was liberated in 1945, how many people were liberated?

Teresa: The records of the Red Cross, which was here with the Red Army, say 7,000 people. It's just very few, as more than 60,000 people were taken for evacuation for the death marches and another 50,000 were taken from here before, those were healthy and strong, those were still working in the different industry in Germany.

Paul: Do you think we have learned lessons today from the Holocaust?

Teresa: It's a very difficult question. We have all got different reflections and analysis to that. As people working here, being involved in research and education, we do our best to answer the question, to inform the visitors, but again we are aware it's just a small percentage of people reaching this place and unfortunately the incidents of mass murders, of different types of violence, of ethnic cleansing and the things that happened in the Second World War are repeating. It's a very sad message being repeated in the media today unfortunately.

Paul: Do Holocaust survivors come back here and how do they feel when they come back and see the camp?

Teresa: Of course they are coming. They were here from the very beginning. The first directors of the Museum were the survivors of Auschwitz. Then the first guides here in the museum were also survivors of Auschwitz. So for many years they were here and today they are coming here for lectures. We invite them for the ceremonies, like the anniversary of the camp liberation. They are the special guests who are also leading the ceremony, so they are giving the official speeches. Some of them are coming with their own families, as they want to show them what was very important in their family history. It used to be that the Israeli groups were accompanied by survivors, but nowadays because of the time, it's in many cases impossible. But as they are saying, it's the legacy; it's something they feel responsible for and that's why as long as they are able, they are coming here.