Obj. ID: 52089
Memorials Auschwitz III Monument in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France, 1993
To the main object: Jewish tombstones at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Inmates and victims of the Auschwitz III Concentration Camp
Description
The monument is in section 77 of the cemetery in an area of other collective monuments. Two flights of granite steps lead to a large rectangular stone on which is inscribed the dedication to the inmates and commandos of the Buna-Monowitz Auschwitz III Camp. Set against the topmost steps is a tiled bronze plaque which lists the names of many of the associated workcamps, and gives information on the deportations there, and the fate of the prisoners.
Atop the base is installed a bronze figurative sculpture of five exhausted prisoners pushing a wheelbarrow containing a body. The figures are all constructed with long strips of bronze, like ribbons, that are joined and shaped to create human forms with only the heads and hands more realistically modeled. The figures are long and lean, and the transparent structure suggests their emaciated, even skeletal, condition.
Inscriptions
On the base of the sculpture:
Buna-Monowitz · Auschwitz III et ses Kommandos
On the Bronze Plaque (French)
De 1941 à 1945
Auschwitz III
Comptait 39 camps nazis, tous exploités par le trust
Allemande de la chimie I. G. – FARBENIDUSTRIE:
Buna-Monowitz, Blechhammer, Gleiwitz I, II, III, IV, Rajko,
Fürstengrube, Günthergrube, Jawischowitz, Jaworzno, Feudenstadt...
30,000 déportés don’t 3,5000 arrêtés en France,
Juifs pour la plupart y mourument de faim, de froid,
sous les coups et d’épuisement, ou désignés par
les S.S. lors des selections, ils furent exterminés
dans les chambres à gaz d’Auschwitz – Birkenau,
n'oublions jamais!
Translation: From 1941 to 1945 AUSCHWITZ III 39 Nazi camps, all operated by the German chemical trust I. G. – FARBENIDUSTRIE: Buna-Monowitz, Blechhammer, Gleiwitz I, II, III, IV, Rajko, Fürstengrube, Günthergrube, Jawischowitz, Jaworzno, Feudenstadt... / 30,000 deportees including 3,5000 arrested in France, Jews for the most part, died there of hunger, cold, under the blows, and by exhaustion, or chosen by the S.S. during the selections, they were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, never forget!
Commissioned by
[to be determined]
sub-set tree: 
Bronze
The dedication of memorials in the Père Lachaise Cemetery to the memory of deportees to concentration camps began in June 1946. The installation of memorial monuments has continued since then.
The memorial to inmates of victims of Auschwitz III was dedicated on February 4, 1993. The monument clearly indicates that the Jews were the main victims of this camp, which opened at the end of October 1941, near the factories of Buna, a manufacturer of synthetic rubber for the company IG-Farben. At first, the camp was attached to the main Auschwitz camp, but in November 1943 it became an autonomous camp under the name of Auschwitz III with about forty units (Kommandos) who worked for the German factories established in Upper Silesia). The detainees were mostly Jews. The working conditions were extremely harsh and those who were exhausted were sent to the gas chambers at Birkenau. The Soviets liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. But the Nazis had evacuated most of the prisoners just before.
The monument clearly indicates that Jews were the main victims of this camp, which was part of the Auschwitz complex. It took nearly 40 years to create this monument because there were so few French survivors of Auschwitz III.
"Monument aux victimes de BUNA MONOWITZ AUSCHWITZ III,” Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Amis et Passionnés du Père Lachaise (APPL), https://www.appl-lachaise.net/monument-aux-victimes-de-buna-monowitz-auschwitz-iii/ (accessed September 20, 2023)
Nord, Philip. After the Deportation: Memory Battles in Postwar France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)