Deposits of Memory

Deposits of Memory
Places of memory in the urban space of the borderland
Participatory project for European educators

The Project

Learn something about Deposits of Memory project – the idea and timeline.

PROJECT

Study Visits

Here you can find some pictures, videos and descriptions of study visits that took place during the project.

Study visits

Maps & Educational materials

Check out where we were and what we learned during the project.

Maps & materials

Participants

Fifteen participants from eight countries took part in the Deposits of Memory Project. Meet them!

Participants

Organizers & founders

The project would not have taken place without the generous support of teh donors

OrganiSers & Founders

About The Project

Project idea

Between February and November 2025, the project brought together 15 educators from 8 countries (Poland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Croatia, the United States and Israel). Through a blended format combining structured online preparation, a five-day international study visit (15–19 June 2025) and sustained post-visit collaboration, participants explored how overlooked sites of memory can be meaningfully integrated into Holocaust and civic education.

The core study visit in Upper Silesia included expert-led lectures, site-based workshops and structured reflection sessions in Katowice, Chorzów, Gliwice, Świętochłowice, Wodzisław Śląski and Pszczyna. Participants examined how industrial heritage, wartime history and contemporary urban space intersect, and reflected on why certain histories remain on the margins of collective memory.

In response to strong interest from local educators, the project was expanded to include an additional component for Polish-speaking teachers. This consisted of a dedicated online preparatory session followed by a one-day study visit in Upper Silesia. The seminar enabled educators who could not participate in the English-language programme to engage with the project’s themes, visit selected sites in situ and reflect on how to integrate marginalised places of memory into their teaching practice. This extension strengthened the project’s sustainability and broadened its national impact.

The project resulted in concrete educational outputs:
– a structured brochure supporting educators in addressing lesser-known forced labour sites,
– short video materials documenting the study visit,
– and a map highlighting marginalised sites of Nazi forced labour in Upper Silesia.

These materials function as a practical and reflective toolbox for educators, combining historical analysis with pedagogical guidance.

Deposits of Memory established a durable international learning community and strengthened professional networking among educators, researchers and remembrance practitioners. By reconnecting forgotten places with contemporary educational practice, the project contributes to a more nuanced and responsible culture of remembrance.

February 2025

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

march 2025

Kick-off meeting

MARCH – JUNE

On-line sessions

june 15-19

study visit in upper silesia

june – november

Online sessions and collaborative work

november 7-8

online sessions and study visit for Polish teachers and educators

november 10th

Wrap up & evaluation session

Study Visits

International Study Visit in Upper Silesia

15-19 June 2025, Katowice – Chorzów – Świętochłowice – Gliwice – Wodzisław Śląski – Pszczyna

Study Visit for Polish Teachers and Educators

8 November 2025, Gliwice – Świętochłowice – Chorzów

show

Watch Deposits of Memory video

Maps & Educational materials

Sub-camps of Auschwitz in Upper Silesia

While sites like Auschwitz dominate our collective memory, this project will shed light on lesser-known areas of the tragic past — such as the Auschwitz sub-camps — the factories, steelworks and mines — and locations along the death march route.

Gleiwitz I–IV were organised, separate branches of the Auschwitz concentration camp system located in Gliwice. They operated at different times between 1944 and January 1945 and used prisoners for labour in railway rolling-stock repair, chemical and metallurgical factories, and in the construction or expansion of military facilities.
Gleiwitz I was established in March 1944 at railway rolling-stock repair workshops; Gleiwitz II formally from May 1944 (lampblack factory / Deutsche Gasrusswerke); Gleiwitz III was created in mid-1944 at the Zieleniewski works / Vereinigte Oberschlesische Hüttenwerke (production of railway and military components); Gleiwitz IV functioned from mid-1944 near military barracks and Organisation Todt facilities.
Reports give varying prisoner numbers, from about 400 to as many as 800, depending on the date. Prisoners came mainly from transports from Auschwitz and included a mixture of Jews (from various countries), Poles, Russians and people of other nationalities. In January 1945 the camps were evacuated as part of the final liquidation of the Auschwitz camp system (death marches / transports).
Documents mention the names of commanders and SS personnel, such as SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Spiker at Gleiwitz III; Otto Moll appears at Gleiwitz I, holding one of the senior positions in 1944. There is also information about SS escorts and guards. At the sites of the former sub-camps in Gliwice there are memorials and commemorative plaques (various forms of remembrance at the former locations).

The Bismarckhütte sub-camp (German: Bismarckhütte / Königshütte-Bismarck) was established in September 1944 at the Bismarck ironworks (Berghütte works). It operated until January 1945. The camp held approximately 80–200 prisoners (a list dated 17 January 1945 records 192), mainly Jews from France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands.
Work included operation and labour in the ironworks; prisoners lived in barracks with a kitchen and an isolation ward. The camp was evacuated in January 1945, primarily by transports to other camps. The area of the former camp has since been the subject of research, museum descriptions and publications.

During the German occupation, the camp at the Eintrachthütte steelworks (Zgoda) operated as an Auschwitz sub-camp (Arbeitslager Auschwitz) from 26 May 1943 until evacuation on 23 January 1945. It was a forced-labour camp at the Eintracht steelworks. Jews (of various nationalities), as well as Poles, Russians and others, were imprisoned there.
After the Germans left, the site was taken over in February 1945 by the NKVD and Polish security services and converted into an internment camp known in the literature as “Zgoda”. It operated under the Ministry of Public Security (with Salomon Morel among the camp commanders from mid-March 1945). In the post-war period the Zgoda camp recorded a very high mortality rate (a typhus epidemic and brutal treatment). Scholarly studies cite documented victim numbers, for example nearly 1,855 deaths in 1945.
Before the war the area belonged to the steelworks; after the war allotment gardens were created on the former camp grounds. Today the site is commemorated (monument, plaques, the former camp gate preserved) and is the subject of ongoing historical research.

The sub-camp known as Althammer (German: Althammer / Stara Kuźnica, today Halemba) operated from September 1944 to January 1945. Prisoners worked on the construction of a power plant (digging foundations, drainage, laying cables) and other building works. The camp commandant was SS-Oberscharführer Hans Mirbeth. SS guards were supported by Wehrmacht/Kriegsmarine reservists and industrial guards.
Museum documentation records at least several dozen deaths (some studies give a minimum of around 20 fatalities). In January 1945 most prisoners were evacuated. Before the war the site was linked to local industrial infrastructure; after the war its function changed. In the 1980s a monument with a commemorative plaque was erected at the former camp site. Museum collections include testimonies and photographs.

The Fürstengrube sub-camp (at the Fürstengrube coal mine in Wesoła, today Mysłowice-Wesoła) was organised in the summer of 1943 at a coal mine. It held a large number of prisoners—according to reports, over 1,200 at its peak in 1944—who worked in the mine and in coal transport. The mine was linked to IG Farben and other industrial concerns.
Sub-camp commanders included SS-Hauptscharführer Otto Moll, followed by SS-Oberscharführer Max Schmidt. Archival reports indicate that the guard force numbered over 60 SS men. After evacuation in January 1945, prisoners were sent on to other locations (death marches / transports). After the war the mine continued operating, and the site has been commemorated with a monument and plaque.

The Laurahütte sub-camp at the Laura ironworks in Siemianowice was opened in early April 1944. Initially it held about 200 prisoners (mainly Jews from France and the Netherlands), but numbers increased in subsequent months; by summer 1944 the camp held several hundred prisoners, with reports of up to around 900 shortly before evacuation.
Prisoners worked on the production of components, including parts for anti-aircraft guns, for Rheinmetall-Borsig / Reichswerke. The camp was guarded by SS personnel (including SS-Oberscharführer Walter Quakernack) and, at workplaces, by naval guards. After evacuation and the war, the ironworks site underwent industrial redevelopment.

Death Marches

Beginning of evacuations / so-called “death marches”: 17–21 January 1945 (final evacuation of the Auschwitz complex).
Total number of prisoners driven out of Auschwitz and its sub-camps at that time: approximately 56,000 (around 56,000–60,000). Most columns headed west through Upper Silesia to assembly points in Wodzisław Śląski and Gliwice, from where they were transported by rail to camps in the Reich.
In total, about 56,000 prisoners were evacuated from Auschwitz in January 1945. Approximately 25,000 were sent towards Wodzisław, and about 16,000 (plus additional groups) towards Gliwice; figures vary depending on how sub-camps and transport days are counted.Victims along the routes: deaths were scattered. On the Wodzisław route, the Auschwitz Museum documents around 450 deaths; total losses associated with the marches in the Upper and Opole Silesia regions are estimated in the thousands. Across all death marches, mortality was extremely high. Various studies estimate several to over ten thousand victims from Auschwitz alone, and for all Nazi death marches in the final months of the war—hundreds of thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of victims.

Dates: columns set out on 17–18 January 1945; some reached Gliwice on 18–20 January 1945.
Route and distance: from the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex to Gliwice—a north-westerly route. Distance given in the literature is about 55 km (c. 34 miles). The marches followed public roads, moved in stages (1–2 days per section), and prisoners from different sub-camps were often merged en route.
Origin of prisoners / sub-camps involved: prisoners sent towards Gliwice came mainly from Monowitz (Auschwitz III) and numerous industrial and urban sub-camps located north-west and west of Oświęcim, including parts of the Gleiwitz sub-camps (I–IV), Laurahütte (Siemianowice), Fürstengrube (Mysłowice/Wesoła) and others. It is estimated that around 16,000–25,000 prisoners were directed towards Gliwice.

Numbers and deaths on the route: the most frequently cited figure for the entire Auschwitz evacuation is about 56,000 prisoners, some of whom marched to Gliwice. Exact death tolls for the Gliwice route alone vary; estimates speak of thousands of victims across the entire region of the marches, with local studies attributing deaths to specific sections and burial sites.
How the march was conducted (method, violence): columns were formed in barracks and escorted by armed SS guards (often with additional industrial guards). Marches took place on public roads, with overnight stops in roadside locations or temporary camps. Prisoners who could not keep up were often shot on the spot, executed during halts, or left to die. Winter conditions, hunger and exhaustion caused very high mortality. From the assembly point in Gliwice, some columns were transported further by train to camps in Germany.
Burial sites linked to the march to Gliwice:
– Jewish Cemetery in Gliwice – collective grave, literature cites 75 victims (site commemorated).
– Numerous smaller graves and mass burial sites scattered along the route and in towns through which the columns passed. Sources indicate that hundreds, even thousands, were buried along the routes to Gliwice and Wodzisław; some bodies were later exhumed and reburied in local cemeteries.
Testimonies / quotations:
Survivor Manya Friedman (USHMM interview) described the sudden evacuation from Gleiwitz and the panic:
“We were being evacuated, nobody knew where to or what … we didn’t know what we were going to do or what would happen.”
Commemoration: local plaques and monuments in Gliwice and along the routes commemorate the victims of the evacuations. The Auschwitz Museum and national studies describe the routes and local memorial sites.

Dates: main columns marched towards Wodzisław between 17 and 19 January 1945; the Pszczyna sections saw heavy movement on 18–19 January.
Route and distance: from Oświęcim (Auschwitz/Birkenau) westwards to Wodzisław Śląski, about 63 km (c. 35 miles). In the Pszczyna/Brzeszcze area the columns split, with parallel routes via Brzeszcze → Jawiszowice → Pszczyna and further either through Pawłowice/Jastrzębie or Żory/Świerklany to Wodzisław.
Origin of prisoners / sub-camps: columns to Wodzisław included prisoners mainly from Birkenau and from agricultural and industrial sub-camps south and south-west of Oświęcim (e.g. Jawischowitz/Brzeszcze, Plawy, Raisko, Budy). About 25,000 prisoners are estimated to have been sent towards Wodzisław.
Numbers and deaths: Auschwitz Museum studies cite around 25,000 prisoners on the Wodzisław route. The museum documents about 450 deaths on this route itself (identified cases), while total losses in Upper and Opole Silesia during the evacuations are estimated at several thousand.
Burial sites (selected examples):
– Miedźna (cemetery, near Brzeszcze–Pszczyna): collective grave of 42 victims; monument erected in 1945.
– Książenice (cemetery): mass grave with plaque and monument; research and victim identification carried out (about 45 victims in one burial).
– Numerous smaller graves along roads, in forests and in local cemeteries (e.g. Suszec/Łęg – roadside monument commemorating victims from 19–20 January 1945).
Conduct of the march: similar to the Gliwice route—SS-escorted columns, overnight stops, extreme winter conditions, executions of those unable to march. After reaching Wodzisław or Gliwice, many prisoners were loaded into cattle wagons and sent to camps in the Reich (Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Flossenbürg, Mittelbau-Dora and others); some columns continued on foot.
Testimonies:
From Auschwitz Museum research and survivor accounts:
“According to the memories of prisoners, the columns were usually two to three days on the route.”
Marian Turski, survivor and witness, recalled:
“I was in Auschwitz almost until the last day until the so-called ‘evacuation’ … Then I was ‘privileged’ …”
Commemoration: monuments, plaques and annual commemorations exist along the routes (Brzeszcze, Jawiszowice, Pszczyna, Suszec, Miedźna, Żory, Świerklany, Wodzisław). The Auschwitz Museum publishes route guides and educational materials on the death marches.