College of Business hosts lecture on non-Jewish victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau 

“In the face of rising global challenges and persistent threats to human rights, the relevance of the Holocaust Remembrance Day extends beyond the confines of history. It serves as a poignant reminder of our shared responsibility to stand against discrimination, bigotry and injustice in all forms,” said Thomas Aicher, dean of the college of business and administration, introducing guest speaker Teresa Wontor-Cichy. 

The UCCS College of Business commemorated the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Aicher emphasized UCCS’ role in continued commitment to “justice, equality and compassion.” 

Wontor-Cichy is a historian and curator in the Research Centre of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim, Poland. She has published extensive research on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, including her books “Voices of Memory 14: The Religious Life of Christian Prisoners in KL Auschwitz” and “Imprisoned for Their Faith: Jehovah’s Witnesses in KL Auschwitz.” 

Wontor-Cichy’s talk focused on non-Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau. She provided accounts from individuals and families detained at Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1941 to 1945. 

Some of the first victims interned there included “intellectuals, teachers, lawyers and journalists.” The camp detained anyone with the ability to “build the resistance in occupied Poland. The first prisoners of the camp were men, but in 1942 they started the deportation of women,” Wontor-Cichy said.  

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nazis developed a system to identify prisoners by tattooed numbers. “After the transport to the camp, their names were taken for the list; name, surname, date of birth, place of birth, profession. And, before the name, the camp number,” Wontor-Cichy said. “They became numbers.” 

Historians like Wontor-Cichy have been able to estimate that “at least 1,300,000” people were held in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Exact numbers are difficult to establish due to a lack of documentation. Historians at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum believe that “almost 95% of the files were destroyed” by the Nazis. 

Karl Gorath was among the 97 identified gay men detained at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Due to his sexuality, Gorath was “not recognized as the survivor of a concentration camp, so it’s only in the recent period that this group is being recognized,” Wontor-Cichy said.  

An estimated 130,000 to 140,000 Poles were imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Half of them, 75,000, died here because of exhaustion,” Wontor-Cichy said. Alongside Polish prisoners were 23,000 Sinti and Roma prisoners

15,000 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Auschwitz after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Wontor-Cichy said. Soviet prisoners soon followed by 10,000 Czechs and 6,000 Belarussians. 

Among the 25,000 foreign prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau were “members of resistance movements” from France, Austria, Slovenia, Ukraine and Russia, Wontor-Cinchy said. 

Wontor-Cichy ended the talk by explaining the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Jan. 27, 1945, by the Soviet Red Army. “Very quickly with the liberators, help came to the camp and a hospital was organized. Slowly, those that were recovering left the camp for their home countries,” Wontor-Cichy said. 

26 students and faculty members attended the Jan. 27 event in person and online. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau. Photo courtesy of BBC.