The Things of Auschwitz

Abstract

Like any other factory, the death factory of Auschwitz consumed primary materials and produced secondary products. Unique to Auschwitz, though, is that the primary material was human life; and not just the life of the breathing human body, but also the material possessions associated with that life. The detritus of this most efficient genocide—including clothing, jewelry, food, and corpses—was appropriated and put to new uses by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the prisoners. Others have recognized the various postwar material cultural outcomes of the camp: the writing, the film, the theater, the art, the tourism. This chapter, however, demonstrates that the material culture of Auschwitz is not a phenomenon exclusive to the postwar era. Inside the camp during the war, despite the landscape of death and deprivation, intimate interaction between humans and material culture continued; and, as we move into a new era of study, understanding that interaction will play an important role in our continued probing of wartime Auschwitz.