Felix Adler

Auschwitz

Topography of a City

When I first came to Auschwitz I was irritated. I didn't expected a town with 40,000 inhabitants at the site of the largest mass murder in history. On several stays I documented the work of the museum's curators, houses in the suburb of Birkenau and the railway tracks that lead through the residential gardens into the death camp. Beside that I photographed people I met in the streets and a series of associative images. The photos are set in a random order to enable a dialogue between the different realities that coexist in Auschwitz.

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Auschwitz
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1 Andrzej Jastrzębiowski works as conservator at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum 2-7 The Preservation Department of the museum is working constantly at the conservation of the outdoor facilities of the Concentration Camp. Walls are shored up, cracks in walls are repaired, and foundations for entire barracks are dug anew. 8 Christin Rosse is a German Paper Conservator who works at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum 9-13 At the Conservation Department of the museum conservators working permanently at conservation of the items left by the killed Concentration Camp prisoners. 14 Agnieszka Sieradzka works as an Art Historian and Curator at the collection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum 15-18 Among other things, the inventory of the collection of the museum consists of more than 100,000 shoes and 3,800 suitcases as well as 2,000 objects of art that imprisoned artists were ordered to produce by the SS. 19-25 The rails on which the train wagons rolled into the Birkenau extermination camp are preserved to this day. 26-33 After World War II the former inhabitants of Birkenau (pol. Brzezinka) returned and rebuilt their village. 34 Marija was born in eastern Poland near Lviv, today western Ukraine. 35 Leszek is the owner of a coal shop at the site of the former Krupp ammunitions factory in Auschwitz. 36 Beata I met in front of the new shopping center, which is only two crossings away from the Concentration Camp 37 Andrzey and Irena just went home form their Saturday shopping tour. 38 Jan was about to attend the Sunday service. 39 Martin and Piotr. 40 Laura photographed at the train station. 41 Brother Krzysztof works as a priest at Jehova’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall in Auschwitz. 42 Natalia photographed at a cemetery, she is from Krakow and was visiting her boyfriends grandma. 43 At hot summer days Tomasz spends his day bathing at the Soła river. During World War II the ashes of the killed people was dumbed into the river. 44 Malgorzata was my AirBnB host in Auschwitz. 45 Miroslav tiling a field on which the ashes of the crematoria was used as fertilizer. 46 Father Slawomir is a pastor in the church next to the Jehovah's Witnesses. 47 Darek is a homeless person living at the streets of Auschwitz. 48 Zbyszek told me that everybody just called him „King“ 49 The local shopping center. 50 In 1946 the local ice hockey club TH Unia Oświęcim was founded. 51 A playground inside a private garden close to the Birkenau Death Camp. 52 The Soła river was used to dump the ashes of the killed people from the crematorium. 53 At my first visit I got a hair cut a t local barber shop. 54 A pile of coal at the site of the former Krupp ammunitions factory in Auschwitz.