Helene Julia Sinnreich

This research project is a study of selection at Auschwitz concentration camp. Using the testimonies of 40 individuals who witnessed these selections, this project examines a series of three selections which took place during the fall of 1944 at Auschwitz concentration camp. This microhistory which focuses on a group of 2,000 young boys from predominantly religious backgrounds between the ages of 12-16 who arrived in the Auschwitz quarantine camp in the summer and fall of 1944 from Poland and Hungary and their experiences during a period of weeks covering September through November 1944. In addition to reconstructing these events from a multitude of perspectives, this project interrogates how memories of these events have been preserved, mythologized, and understood, especially within the most religious Jewish communities