THE  STORY OF THE AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU CREMATORIA WHITE-PRINT: FROM HORROR TO HUMANITY

A Collector’s Acquisition

At the end of 2025, an eye-catching headline appeared in several major news outlets: Robin and Elliott Broidy had paid $ 1.5 million for an original architectural drawing of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. 

 The fact behind the news was both significant and unusual. Private individuals rarely spend such a substantial amount on a single artifact, particularly one of such grave nature. In my 35 years working in this field, I can recall very few comparable acts. I wanted to understand the decision behind it in more detail. 

It is known that only two original versions of this document exist: the one recently acquired by Robin and Elliott Broidy for philanthropic and Holocaust-education purposes, and another that was seized by the Soviet Army when it liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. The latter has been sealed in a Russian state military archive ever since, aside from a brief de-classification period in the mid-1990s when researchers were allowed limited access. It has not been available for review since.  

Importantly, the amount the Broidys paid for the whiteprint was chosen to honor the one and a half million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust. This dedication tells you everything about the significance of their acquisition. 

The above photograph of murdered Jewish children hangs in the centre of my husband, artist Michael Rogatchi’s studio, and always will. The children are at his side as he works, and he spends most of his time there. They are always with him. 

So we understand the power of Elliott and Robin Broidy’s gesture completely. 

 White-print of mass murder

Before me lies a typical product of a European architectural bureau or engineering office from the 1940s: clean, sophisticated, precise, confidently drawn lines, all executed by hand, lending the document an unsettling authenticity. 

You look casually at the document, yellowed with age. It appears to be a precise drawing of an ordinary house. Then your eyes reach the two vertical lines at its centre, and your heart stops: a chimney, disproportionally large. 

No wonder the Nazis tried to destroy all material evidence of their unspeakable crimes. Yet according to first-hand accounts I studied in the Simon Wiesenthal Archive, Soviet troops approaching Auschwitz in January 1945 were guided by the stench of burning........

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