Norbert Wollheim

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.

Monowitz (also known as Monowitz-Buna, Buna and Auschwitz III) was a Nazi concentration camp and labor camp (Arbeitslager) run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1942–1945, during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of its existence, Monowitz was a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp; from November 1943 it and other Nazi subcamps in the area were jointly known as "Auschwitz III-subcamps" (KL Auschwitz III-Aussenlager). In November 1944 the Germans renamed it Monowitz concentration camp, after the village of Monowice (German: Monowitz) where it was built, in the annexed portion of Poland. SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Heinrich Schwarz was commandant from November 1943 to January 1945. The SS established the camp in October 1942 at the behest of IG Farben executives to provide slave labor for their Buna Werke (Buna Works) industrial complex. The name Buna was derived from the butadiene-based synthetic rubber and the chemical symbol for sodium (Na), a process of synthetic rubber production developed in Germany. Other German industrial enterprises built factories with their own subcamps, such as Siemens-Schuckert's Bobrek subcamp, close to Monowitz, to profit from the use of slave labor. The German armaments manufacturer Krupp, headed by SS member Alfried Krupp, also built their own manufacturing facilities near Monowitz.Monowitz held around 12,000 prisoners, the great majority of whom were Jews, in addition to non-Jewish criminals and political prisoners. The SS charged IG Farben three Reichsmarks (RM) per day for unskilled workers, four (RM) per hour for skilled workers, and one and one-half (RM) for children. The camp contained an "Arbeitsausbildungslager" (labor education camp) for non-Jewish prisoners viewed as not up to par with German work standards. The life expectancy of Jewish workers at Buna Werke was three to four months; for those working in the outlying mines, only one month. Those deemed unfit for work were gassed at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.Primo Levi, author of If This Is a Man (1947), survived Monowitz, as did Elie Wiesel, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning book Night (1960), who was a teenage inmate there along with his father.

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.

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 [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.

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.

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 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.

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).

Gmina Oświęcim is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. Its seat is the town of Oświęcim, although the town is not part of the territory of the gmina. The gmina covers an area of 74.47 square kilometres (28.8 sq mi), and as of 2006 its total population is 16,708.