About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Escaping the train to Auschwitz On 19 April 1943, a train carrying 1,631 Jews set off from a Nazi detention camp in Belgium for the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But resistance fighters stopped the train. One boy who jumped to freedom that night retains vivid memories, 70 years later. In February 1943, 11-year-old Simon Gronowski was sitting down for breakfast with his mother and sister in their Brussels hiding place when two Gestapo agents burst in. They were taken to the Nazis’ notorious headquarters on the prestigious Avenue Louise, used as a prison for Jews and torture chamber for members of the resistance. Today, Gronowski lives a two-minute walk from this building, where he was held for two nights without food or water. “My parents had made a mistake - only one, but a serious one, which was… to have been born Jewish - a crime that, at the time, could only be punished by death,” he says. (Source: BBC News)

    Escaping the train to Auschwitz

    On 19 April 1943, a train carrying 1,631 Jews set off from a Nazi detention camp in Belgium for the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But resistance fighters stopped the train. One boy who jumped to freedom that night retains vivid memories, 70 years later.

    In February 1943, 11-year-old Simon Gronowski was sitting down for breakfast with his mother and sister in their Brussels hiding place when two Gestapo agents burst in.

    They were taken to the Nazis’ notorious headquarters on the prestigious Avenue Louise, used as a prison for Jews and torture chamber for members of the resistance.

    Today, Gronowski lives a two-minute walk from this building, where he was held for two nights without food or water.

    “My parents had made a mistake - only one, but a serious one, which was… to have been born Jewish - a crime that, at the time, could only be punished by death,” he says.

    (Source: BBC News)

    Escaping the train to Auschwitz On 19 April 1943, a train carrying 1,631 Jews set off from a Nazi detention camp in Belgium for the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But resistance fighters stopped the train. One boy who jumped to freedom that night retains vivid memories, 70 years later. In February 1943, 11-year-old Simon Gronowski was sitting down for breakfast with his mother and sister in their Brussels hiding place when two Gestapo agents burst in. They were taken to the Nazis’ notorious headquarters on the prestigious Avenue Louise, used as a prison for Jews and torture chamber for members of the resistance. Today, Gronowski lives a two-minute walk from this building, where he was held for two nights without food or water. “My parents had made a mistake - only one, but a serious one, which was… to have been born Jewish - a crime that, at the time, could only be punished by death,” he says. (Source: BBC News)

    Escaping the train to Auschwitz

    On 19 April 1943, a train carrying 1,631 Jews set off from a Nazi detention camp in Belgium for the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But resistance fighters stopped the train. One boy who jumped to freedom that night retains vivid memories, 70 years later.

    In February 1943, 11-year-old Simon Gronowski was sitting down for breakfast with his mother and sister in their Brussels hiding place when two Gestapo agents burst in.

    They were taken to the Nazis’ notorious headquarters on the prestigious Avenue Louise, used as a prison for Jews and torture chamber for members of the resistance.

    Today, Gronowski lives a two-minute walk from this building, where he was held for two nights without food or water.

    “My parents had made a mistake - only one, but a serious one, which was… to have been born Jewish - a crime that, at the time, could only be punished by death,” he says.

    (Source: BBC News)

    Tears of a concentration camp survivor on 68th anniversary of Buchenwald liberation where Nazis killed 56,000 men  With tears in his eyes as he holds roses in his left hand, Petro Mischtschuk poignantly stands on the grounds of a Second World War concentration camp where more than 50,000 people lost their lives. The 87-year-old Ukrainian survivor of the appalling Buchenwald yesterday laid flowers at a ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of the liberation of the camp outside Weimar, eastern Germany. Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war died in the camp between 1937 and 1945. (Source: The Daily Mail)

    Tears of a concentration camp survivor on 68th anniversary of Buchenwald liberation where Nazis killed 56,000 men 

    With tears in his eyes as he holds roses in his left hand, Petro Mischtschuk poignantly stands on the grounds of a Second World War concentration camp where more than 50,000 people lost their lives.

    The 87-year-old Ukrainian survivor of the appalling Buchenwald yesterday laid flowers at a ceremony marking the 68th anniversary of the liberation of the camp outside Weimar, eastern Germany.

    Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war died in the camp between 1937 and 1945.

    (Source: The Daily Mail)

    The colour of darkness: Vivid pictures of first Nazi concentration camps give chilling insight into the dawn of the Holocaust These horrifying colour pictures show the conditions endured by the first victims of Hitler’s concentration camps. The camps were hastily erected in Germany in February 1933 immediately after Hitler became Chancellor. The images, posted on Vintage Everyday, show the earliest victims of Hitler’s murderous regime and harrowingly chronicle what they were forced to endure. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA, SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organised numerous detention camps to incarcerate and torture their opponents. Read more.

    The colour of darkness: Vivid pictures of first Nazi concentration camps give chilling insight into the dawn of the Holocaust

    These horrifying colour pictures show the conditions endured by the first victims of Hitler’s concentration camps. The camps were hastily erected in Germany in February 1933 immediately after Hitler became Chancellor.

    The images, posted on Vintage Everyday, show the earliest victims of Hitler’s murderous regime and harrowingly chronicle what they were forced to endure.

    In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA, SS, the police, and local civilian authorities organised numerous detention camps to incarcerate and torture their opponents.

    Read more.

    Fury over artist who claims he used ash from Nazi concentration camp crematorium in his painting A Swedish artist has caused outrage after exhibiting artwork which he claims to have painted using ashes gathered in the crematorium of a Nazi concentration camp. Carl Michael von Hausswolff stole the ashes from Majdanek concentration camp in Poland during a 1989 trip and over two decades later, mixed it with water and used it as paint. He has now been reported to the police for desecrating the remains of Majdanek’s Holocaust victims, under Swedish burial protection laws. Mr von Hausswolff visited Poland in 1989 to exhibit his art at a gallery not far from Lublin, a town near Majdanek. He says he was ‘gathering material for the exhibition’ when he visited the concentration camp. ‘I gathered some ashes from one of the cremation ovens, but did not use it for the exhibition – the material was too charged with the cruelties which had taken place.’ Not until 2010 did the artist decide to ‘do something’ with the ashes he had stolen from Majdanek and used it as paint by mixing it with water. The exhibited result has enraged art critics and provoked public outcry over the use of human remains as art. Author and translator Salomon Schulman called the artwork ‘nauseating, obsessed necrophilia’. With what he calls ‘posthumous disgust’, Mr Schulman asks: ‘Some of the ashes may be from one of my relatives? Maybe even a brother of my flesh?’ ‘It is repulsive beyond the extreme’, he told Swedish television. Read more here.

    Fury over artist who claims he used ash from Nazi concentration camp crematorium in his painting

    A Swedish artist has caused outrage after exhibiting artwork which he claims to have painted using ashes gathered in the crematorium of a Nazi concentration camp.

    Carl Michael von Hausswolff stole the ashes from Majdanek concentration camp in Poland during a 1989 trip and over two decades later, mixed it with water and used it as paint.

    He has now been reported to the police for desecrating the remains of Majdanek’s Holocaust victims, under Swedish burial protection laws.

    Mr von Hausswolff visited Poland in 1989 to exhibit his art at a gallery not far from Lublin, a town near Majdanek. He says he was ‘gathering material for the exhibition’ when he visited the concentration camp.

    ‘I gathered some ashes from one of the cremation ovens, but did not use it for the exhibition – the material was too charged with the cruelties which had taken place.’

    Not until 2010 did the artist decide to ‘do something’ with the ashes he had stolen from Majdanek and used it as paint by mixing it with water.

    The exhibited result has enraged art critics and provoked public outcry over the use of human remains as art.

    Author and translator Salomon Schulman called the artwork ‘nauseating, obsessed necrophilia’.

    With what he calls ‘posthumous disgust’, Mr Schulman asks: ‘Some of the ashes may be from one of my relatives? Maybe even a brother of my flesh?’

    ‘It is repulsive beyond the extreme’, he told Swedish television.

    Read more here.

    In pictures: Auschwitz-Birkenau, then and now

    A new publication by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland shows photographs taken in the extermination camp during World War II alongside pictures of the same locations today. More than a million people - most of them Jewish - were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II.

    Holocaust deniers who claim World War Two extermination camp Treblinka was not site of Jewish genocide proved wrong by...

    archaeologicalnews:

    A British forensic archaeologist has unearthed fresh evidence to prove the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka - scuppering the claims of Holocaust deniers who say it was merely a transit camp.

    Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the site, in north east Poland, during the…

    Gym slammed for using picture of Nazi death camp Auschwitz to promote weight loss… but owner says it’s been great for business A gym has come under fire for using a picture of a Nazi concentration camp - where millions of Jews were starved and gassed to death - to promote weight loss. The Circuit Factory, in Dubai, sparked controversy by using a photograph of Auschwitz to kick-start potential new members into losing a few pounds. It shows train tracks leading up to the death camp with the caption ‘Kiss your calories goodbye’ underneath. Wow. Now how’s *that* for bad taste?! You can read the rest of the article by clicking on the photograph.

    Gym slammed for using picture of Nazi death camp Auschwitz to promote weight loss… but owner says it’s been great for business

    A gym has come under fire for using a picture of a Nazi concentration camp - where millions of Jews were starved and gassed to death - to promote weight loss.

    The Circuit Factory, in Dubai, sparked controversy by using a photograph of Auschwitz to kick-start potential new members into losing a few pounds.

    It shows train tracks leading up to the death camp with the caption ‘Kiss your calories goodbye’ underneath.

    Wow. Now how’s *that* for bad taste?! You can read the rest of the article by clicking on the photograph.

    Musical ‘masterpiece’ captures horror of Auschwitz concentration camp

    Opera based on novel by a Catholic death camp survivor and composed by a Polish Jew comes to Britain at last

    An Auschwitz survivor who wrote a novel based on her experiences in the camp has told the Observer that only the opera based on her book,which is due to have its UK premiere at the English National Opera this week, can adequately capture the horror of her time there.

    Zofia Posmysz, a devout Catholic, was arrested aged 18 and tortured by the Gestapo before being sent to the death camp for “three years and 21 days”, merely for being with someone carrying Polish resistance leaflets. She said only her faith gave her the courage to survive, despite suffering the “greatest extremes of degradation”.

    Her semi-autobiographical novel, The Passenger, inspired the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg to write the opera, which he completed in 1968. Despite being hailed by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as a “perfect masterpiece”, the opera was banned by the Soviet Union and it did not receive its world premiere until it was staged in Bregenz, Austria, last year.

    I can’t say that opera has ever really appealed to me, but this sounds like it is something quite special. The Passenger opens at the Coliseum, London, on 19th Sept for eight performances - for further details see eno.org and if you are interested in reading more about Zofia Posmysz’s story, then click here.