Czesława Kwoka

Early life Czesława Kwoka was born in Wólka Złojecka, a small village in Poland, to Roman Catholic parents Katarzyna (née Matwiejczuk), and Paweł Kwoka.

Deportation to Auschwitz Along with her mother (prisoner number 26946), Kwoka (prisoner number 26947) was deported from her village, and transported from a resettlement camp at Zamość, General Government, to Auschwitz, on 13 December 1942, during Operation Zamość which was initiated in November that year to create Lebensraum for Germans in eastern Europe. Most of these children "arrived in the camp along with their families as part of the various operations that the Nazis carried out against whole ethnic or social groups". Of all these children and young people, "only slightly more than 20,000 ... including 11,000 Gypsies, were entered in the camp records. No more than 650 of them survived until liberation [in 1945]." Trained as a portrait photographer at his aunt's studio prior to the 1939 German invasion of Poland beginning World War II, Brasse and others had been ordered to photograph inmates by their Nazi captors under threat.

These photographs that he and others were ordered to take capture each inmate "in three poses: from the front and from each side."

Legacy Memorial exhibits While most photographs of Auschwitz inmates (both victims and survivors) no longer exist, some photographs do populate memorial displays at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where the photographs of Kwoka reside, and at Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

On the 75th anniversary of her death, a colorized version of the photographs was published by Brazilian artist Marina Amaral.