Peter Maria Schäfer: Spuren

Auschwitz

Peter Maria Schäfer (* 1961), photographer and filmmaker, had already once honored Holocaust survivor Tadeusz Szymanski (1917 2002) with his journalistic work in form of a film. Now he is dedicating a book to him with a series of impressive photographs that he has taken since the mid-1980s at the former extermination camp Auschwitz, as well as in the town s Judengasse. Tadeusz ­Szymanski, who was severely ill at the time of his admission to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1941 and therefore already selected, did survive because they wanted to study the pathogenesis of typhus on him as a living »subject of research«. In 1945, on a transport to Buchenwald shortly before the ­arrival of the Soviet Army, he managed to flee ­during a stopover on Czech territory. As early as 1946, Szymanski together with other former ­prisoners, was involved in the preservation of the camp complex in Auschwitz and the local establishment of a memorial. At the Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, he mainly looked after visitors during the 1950 s, fought for the establishment of an international youth educational center and, until his retirement in 1977, directed the collections of the camp s museum. Tadeusz Szymanski, who is considered a pioneer of Polish reconciliation with Germany, was awarded the Theodor-Heuss-Medal in 1986.