Danuta Czech (1922 – 4 April 2004) was a Polish Holocaust historian and deputy director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland.
Background
Czech was born in
Humniska, Poland. During World War II and the German occupation of Poland, her father, Stefan Czech, was a member of the
Home Army who spent time in the
Auschwitz,
Buchenwald and
Dora-Mittelbau concentration camps. Czech attended the St. Kinga gymnasium in Tarnów, graduating in 1939, then the commercial lyceum, also in Tarnów, in 1941. According to the museum, she became a member of the Polish resistance, along with her father. From 1946 to 1952, she studied sociology at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, obtaining a master of philosophy degree. In 1955 she began work as a researcher with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, eventually becoming its deputy director.
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The Auschwitz Chronicle
Almost 1,000 pages in length, The Auschwitz Chronicle is a meticulous chronicle of events in the Auschwitz concentration camp from construction to liberation. According to the Auschwitz museum, the book became Czech's life's work: "No serious scholarly work on Auschwitz could fail to cite her study."[
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Selected works
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(1984) with Jadwiga Bezwinska (eds.). KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS: Höss, Broad, Kremer. New York: Howard Fertig.
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(1990). The Auschwitz Chronicle: 1939–1945. New York: Holt. First published in installments by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 1958–1963. Also published as Kalendarium wydarzen w obozie Koncentracyjnm Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939–1945.
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(1996) with Franciszek Piper and Teresa Świebocka. Auschwitz: Nazi death camp. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
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(2000). "A Calendar of the Most Important Events in the History of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp". In
