View of the old town in Oswiecim from the river Sola.
Overview
- Caption
- View of the old town in Oswiecim from the river Sola.
On the right side there is a Catholic church of Our Lady Help and a carpentry school run by Salesian priests (large building with a tower). On the left, about 200 meters from the church, the former site of the Great Synagogue prior to its destruction by the Germans and some houses of the former Jewish district at Berek Joselewicz Street, the center of the Jewish community . - Date
-
September 1942
- Locale
- Oswiecim, [Krakow] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Auschwitz
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Peter Wirths
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Peter WirthsSource Record ID: Collections: 2015.66.1
Keywords & Subjects
- Photo Designation
-
KILLING CENTERS -- Auschwitz -- WARTIME -- Views
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Dr. Eduard Wirths was born September 4, 1909 in Geroldshausen, a small village near Wuerzburg in southern Germany, the oldest of three boys. Though Catholic, the family had socialist leanings. Yet while in college Wirths became attracted to Nazism. He joined the SA in 1933 and the SS in 1934 and volunteered serve in the Thuringian State Office for Racial Matters. He initially served as a combat physician in Norway and Russia, but after suffering a mild heart attack he left the front lines to work in a series of concentration camps. He first served in Dachau and Neuengamme before being appointed chief physician at Auschwitz on September 6, 1942 where he oversaw some twenty SS physicians, dentists and medical personnel. Though tasked with eradicating a typhus epidemic, Wirths also participated in selections on the ramp and abetted medical experimentation on Jewish female prisoners from Block 10. However he also protected prisoner inmates working in the camp. In September 1944, Eduard Wirths was promoted to the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer (major). After the evacuation of Auschwitz in advance of its capture by the Red Army, Wirths was transferred to Dora Mittelbau where he served as the chief medical officer until April 1945. Dr. Wirths committed suicide on September 20, 1945 after his capture by the British.
- Record last modified:
- 2019-02-28 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1179182
