EXTREMELY SENSITIVE CONTENT – 18+ ONLY This post describes the suffering and murder of a 14-year-old Polish child prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Shared solely for historical education and to honour the 1.1 million victims of the camp, including approximately 230,000 children.

ANGEL IN HELL: The Fate of Czesława Kwoka (1928–1943)

Czesława Kwoka was born on 15 August 1928 in the small village of Wólka Złojecka in the Zamość region of Poland. She was a cheerful Catholic girl with blue eyes and auburn hair who helped her mother Katarzyna around the house and attended the local school.

In December 1942, as part of the brutal “Aktion Zamość” – the Nazi plan to ethnically cleanse the area for German settlers – Czesława and her mother were torn from a transit camp and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the transport that arrived on 13 December 1942. Czesława received prisoner number 26947; her mother became 26946.

Upon arrival, the 14-year-old was taken to Block 6 for registration. Polish prisoner-photographer Wilhelm Brasse, forced to work in the Erkennungsdienst (identification service), later remembered her clearly: a terrified child who did not understand German commands. When she failed to stand correctly for the compulsory three photographs (front, profile, and with cap), a female Kapo struck her hard across the face with a stick. The blow split her lower lip and brought blood and tears. Brasse asked the girl to wipe her face so the picture could be taken; the resulting images show a frightened child with a bleeding lip and freshly shorn head.

Czesława’s mother Katarzyna was murdered on 18 February 1943. Less than one month later, on 12 March 1943 – exactly three months after arrival – Czesława herself was killed by a phenol injection to the heart in Block 20, the camp’s so-called “hospital” block. The official death register falsely listed “cachexia” (extreme emaciation) as the cause.

Wilhelm Brasse hid the negatives of her photographs at great personal risk. After the war he handed them over to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where they remain one of the most recognisable and heartbreaking images of the Holocaust’s child victims.

We remember Czesława Kwoka today not to nurture hatred, but to honour the approximately 230,000 children deported to Auschwitz, of whom fewer than 650 survived; to recognise the innocence that was deliberately crushed; and to ensure that every time her photograph is seen, the world renews its promise of “Never Again”.

Official & reputable sources

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archives – prisoner registration card 26947 and transport list 13 Dec 1942

Panzer, Wilhelm (Brasse) – testimony recorded 2005, published in “Photographer of Auschwitz” (Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, 2011)

Struk, Janina – Photographing the Holocaust (I.B. Tauris, 2004)

Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau – permanent exhibition Block 6: “The Life of the Prisoners”

Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names – entry for Czesława Kwoka