Historian Piotr Mateusz Andrzej Cywiński, 52, has been the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum since 2006. This Polish Catholic immersed himself in the testimonies of camp survivors.
In Auschwitz, a monograph of humanity
(Calmann-Lévy), he delivers the polyphonic account of the planned extermination, from the perspective and memories of those who survived. His book was published in France on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camp.
Piotr Mateusz Andrzej Cywiński, historian, is director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
• LUCIE BASCOUL FOR LIFE
-Why did you undertake this human monograph of Auschwitz?
After the war, Auschwitz was only studied from a factual, chronological point of view. But the experience inside the camp was left a little aside. I therefore wanted, thanks to the writings of survivors, to put the human being at the center, and to try to express the emotions, the states of mind, the reflections, in this filthy and dehumanizing system. Not from the point of view of psychology or traumatology but from the historian. I tried not to interpret these stories.
I studied between 2,000 and 3,000 testimonies, some oral and preserved in archives which did not result in publications. I drew from around 1,700 representative quotes from more than 400 people, explaining how they felt. They are the framework of the book. I only added introductions or links, so as not to impose my point of view.
Some testimonies date from 1947. We were unable to really read them. In the 1980s, historians
