This talk explores survival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It examines the "selection" process at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp whereby German camp doctors decided if a prisoner was going to be killed in a gas chamber or be permitted to live. This project focuses on a singular selection of approximately 2000 boys between the ages of 11-17 which took place in the fall of 1944 at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It examines the myriad of survival strategies employed by the boys and the other prisoners who tried to help save them. Additionally, it looks at the afterlife of this event in public memory, religious understanding of the event, and perceptions of the event as expressed in post-war testimonies.
Image: A view of the Auschwitz concentration camp after liberation. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Unknown Russian archive