Auschwitz-Birkenau State Muse Announces New Acquisitions

The portable warming kettle was used for transporting liquids and soup from the camp kitchen to the place where it was distributed. "The producer was the Kuppersbusch company, which is still in business today as a manufacturer of kitchen appliances," said Igor Bartosik, head of the Collections Department. "We already have kettles like this among our holdings. You can also see them in archival photographs taken at the camp when it was in operation."

The cement sacks acquired for the Museum collection have labels from the time of the Second World War. They come from the Auschwitz III-Golleschau sub-camp, where prisoners performed slave labor in the quarries and cement factory.

One of the drawings used to "decorate" the walls of prisoner sleeping quarters (used today as part of a cement factory) at the Golleschau site depicts prisoners at work. Among other things, it shows the warehouse, with prisoners stacking hundreds of similar sacks full of cement. The drawing is the work of Jean Bartichand, A Jew from France who was deported to Auschwitz from the Drancy transit camp.

There is now a memorial chamber at the Golleschau site, established by the local community, which includes an exhibition room and a lecture room. Plans are also afoot to create a commemorative trail around the stone quarry there, which is currently flooded.

The picture shows 'A warming kettle for transporting liquids and soup from the camp kitchen. Collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum'. -- www.auschwitz.org.pl