Monowitz concentration camp

Primo Michele Levi (Italian: [ˈpriːmo ˈlɛːvi]; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works include If This Is a Man (1947, published as Survival in Auschwitz in the United States), his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland; and The Periodic Table (1975), a collection of mostly autobiographical short stories each named after a chemical element as it played a role in each story, which the Royal Institution named the best science book ever written.Levi died in 1987 from injuries sustained in a fall from a third-story apartment landing. His death was officially ruled a suicide, but some, after careful consideration, have suggested that the fall was accidental because he left no suicide note, there were no witnesses, and he was on medication that could have affected his blood pressure and caused him to fall accidentally.

Norbert Wollheim (April 26, 1913 – November 1, 1998) was a chartered accountant, tax advisor, previously a board member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and a functionary of other Jewish organisations. Wollheim grew up in Berlin. He studied jurisprudence and political economy, but had to cease his studies in 1933 because of his Jewish origin. He then worked as a welder for a metal export firm until the outbreak of war in 1939. During that same period he played a key role in running the Kindertransport which transported 10,000 Jewish children out of the Nazi's reach and into safety. Wollheim engaged himself strongly in the Jewish life and became a managing director of the federation of German-Jewish Werkleute youth. After the night of the November Pogroms known as Kristallnacht in 1938, he helped to organise the transports of Jewish children to Great Britain and Sweden. In 1939, he also personally accompanied Kindertransports to Sweden, but immediately returned to Berlin after leaving the children in safety. Until 1941 he was responsible for the vocational training schools of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland and adviser on the training relating to crafts of Jewish Germans. From September 1941 Wollheim worked at a transportation equipment factory in Lichtenberg, Berlin.

Oświęcim Castle (Polish: Zamek w Oświęcimiu) is a castle raised in the Medieval Ages on the top of a hill, on the right bank of the River Soła in Oświęcim.The castle comprises a thirteenth-century early-Gothic defence tower covered by a roof, a two-floor building built around a courtyard (with the old wing from the beginning of the sixteenth century) and additional connections between the wings built in 1929–31. Most of the fortifications around the castle were destroyed due to the changing river course of the River Soła.On the top of the hill where the castle is located there are remains of the fortifications. There are two tunnels located underneath the castle, the older (built before 1914) and the second which was excavated by the Germans (1940–1944). The tunnels were used as bunkers.

Gromiec [ˈɡrɔmjɛt͡s] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Libiąż, within Chrzanów County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland.

Bobrek was a subcamp of Monowitz concentration camp located in or near Bobrek, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland, and was part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. It was built by Siemens-Schuckert and held approximately 250-300 prisoners including 50 women who were used as slave labor to produce electrical parts for aircraft and U-boat submarines. The commandant of the camp was SS-Scharführer Hermann Buch.

Bobrek [ˈbɔbrɛk] is a village located adjacent to the city of Oświęcim, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland. During the Second World War, Nazi Germany operated a concentration camp at Bobrek. It lies approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) south of Chełmek, 2 km (1 mi) north-east of Oświęcim, and 49 km (30 mi) west of the regional capital Kraków. The concentration camp at Bobrek is mentioned in an episode of the U.S. TV show Law & Order.

Poręba Wielka [pɔˈrɛmba ˈvjɛlka] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) south-east of Oświęcim and 48 km (30 mi) west of the regional capital Kraków.

The Soła (Polish: [ˈsɔwa]) is a river in southern Poland, a right tributary of the Vistula. The Soła originates in the Western Beskids mountain range near the border with Slovakia. It is made up of the confluence of several small creeks at the village of Rajcza. It runs downhill northeastwards through Żywiec Basin to the towns of Żywiec and Kęty, forming the border between the Silesian and the Żywiec Beskids. After 89 km (55 mi), the Soła empties into the Vistula River after passing through the town of Oświęcim. The river flows within metres of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum informs that the human ashes and ground bones of those murdered there were often dumped into the river.Soła flows through or near the following settlements: Rajcza, Milówka, Cisiec, Węgierska Górka, Cięcina, Radziechowy, Wieprz, Żywiec, Tresna, Czernichów, Międzybrodzie Żywieckie, Międzybrodzie Bialskie, Porąbka, Czaniec, Kobiernice, Kęty, Nowa Wieś, Hecznarowice, Bielany, Łęki, and Oświęcim.

The Duchy of Oświęcim (Polish: Księstwo Oświęcimskie), or the Duchy of Auschwitz (German: Herzogtum Auschwitz), was one of many Duchies of Silesia, formed in the aftermath of the fragmentation of Poland. It was established about 1315 on the Lesser Polish lands east of the Biała river held by the Silesian branch of the Polish royal Piast dynasty. Briefly semi-autonomous, with its capital in Oświęcim, it was finally sold to the Kingdom of Poland in 1457. Annexed by the Habsburg Empire in 1772, the remaining ducal title ceased to exist in 1918 with the lands being reincorporated into the Second Polish Republic.

Włosienica [vwɔɕɛˈnit͡sa] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) south-east of Oświęcim and 45 km (28 mi) west of the regional capital Kraków.

The Jewish cemetery in Oświęcim (German: Auschwitz), Poland, was destroyed by the Germans during World War II and partly restored by returning Jewish survivors after the Holocaust. In Communist Poland it fell into disrepair and was fully restored in the 1990s.

Oświęcim County (Polish: powiat oświęcimski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat and largest town is Oświęcim, which lies 51 kilometres (32 mi) west of the regional capital Kraków. The county contains four other towns: Kęty, 17 km (11 mi) south of Oświęcim, Brzeszcze, 9 km (6 mi) south-west of Oświęcim, Chełmek, 8 km (5 mi) north of Oświęcim, and Zator, 16 km (10 mi) east of Oświęcim. The county covers an area of 406.03 square kilometres (156.8 sq mi). As of 2006, its total population is 153,390, out of which the population of Oświęcim is 40,979, that of Kęty is 19,252, that of Brzeszcze is 11,730, that of Chełmek is 9,065, that of Zator is 3,726, and the rural population is 68,638. The county contains the sites of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex (Auschwitz being the German name for Oświęcim).