Poland to publish extensive list of Auschwitz staff
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
19.05.2015 08:46
Poland is to publish what is being billed as the most complete list to date of staff who worked at the Nazi German death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Baracken im deutschen KZ-AuschwitzBild: wikicommons/Dawid Galus
The initiative could lead to a new wave of war crimes trials.
The documentation has been carried out by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a public body that is charged among other tasks with investigating war crimes against Polish citizens.
According to Waldemar Szwiec, the head of the investigative department of the Kraków branch of IPN, the new list comprises 8753 people, including 186 women.
He told the Rzeczpospolita daily that previous lists named between 4000 and 5000 functionaries, and only about 770 members of staff were convicted after the war.
Investigators estimate that dozens of camp functionaries are still alive today.
The sites were liberated in January 1945 by the Red Army, and it is estimated that around 1.1 million people died at the combined camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The vast majority of those that perished were Jews, but victims included ethnic Poles, Roma and Soviet POWs, among others. (nh)
Source: PAP