Kazimierz Smoleń letters

Kazimierz Smoleń (1920-2012) was born on April 19, 1920 in Chorzów, Poland. On April 15, 1940 he was arrested by the Gestapo for underground activities. On July 6, 1940, he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in one of the first transports of Polish political prisoners. Smoleń was assigned the number 1327 and housed in block 3a. He was assigned to a construction work gang and later to the camp’s administration office. He could speak and type German, so he worked as a writer in the political section. This entailed compiling lists of prisoner arrivals, issuing identification numbers, and keeping records and receipts. On January 17 or 18, 1945 he was sent on a death march to the Mauthausen sub-camp Ebensee. He was liberated from the Ebensee concentration camp on May 6, 1945. After the war, Smoleń studied law at the Catholic University in Lublin and worked at the Main Commission for Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland for several years. He served as a witness and expert in the trials against Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main. He was co-founder as well as director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim in the years 1955-1990. He was also long-time secretary general and deputy chairman of the International Auschwitz Council. He died on January 27, 2012 in Oświęcim, Poland.