#Auschwitz tours

[taruntravell]

Unveiling Auschwitz: A Comprehensive Guide to the Camp's Significant Sites

Auschwitz tours, located in present-day Poland, was a complex of Nazi concentration and extermination camps during World War II. It remains a solemn reminder of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. Here is a comprehensive guide to some of the significant sites within Auschwitz:

Auschwitz I: Main Camp

Entrance Gate (Arbeit Macht Frei): The infamous wrought-iron gate with the inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) greeted prisoners upon arrival.

Commander's Headquarters: Explore the building where Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, had his office.

Prisoners' Blocks: Visit the barracks where inmates were housed in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

Execution Wall: The wall where thousands of prisoners were shot.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau: Extermination Camp

Selection Platform: Witness the site where arriving prisoners faced life or death decisions, as SS officers determined who would live and who would die.

Crematoria and Gas Chambers: Explore the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, where mass extermination took place.

Railway Ramp: Imagine the arrival of trains carrying victims and the immediate separation of families.

Birkenau Memorial: Pay respects at the memorial erected near the ruins of Crematorium II.

Auschwitz III-Monowitz: Slave Labor Camp

Industrial Facilities: Learn about the forced labor and inhumane conditions endured by prisoners working for the IG Farben industrial complex.

Prisoners' Living Quarters: Explore the remains of barracks where inmates lived in deplorable conditions.

Soviet Liberation Monument

Red Army Memorial: Visit the monument erected by the Soviet Union to commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in January 1945.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

Documentation and Exhibitions: Explore the museum's exhibitions, which include personal belongings, photographs, and documents that provide insight into the lives of the victims.

Educational Programs: Participate in educational programs offered by the museum to gain a deeper understanding of the Holocaust.

International Memorial Day

January 27th: Attend commemorative events held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor the victims and reflect on the importance of preventing such atrocities in the future.

Visitor Information

Guided Tours: Consider taking a guided tour for a more in-depth understanding of the historical context and personal stories.

Respectful Behavior: While visiting Auschwitz, maintain a solemn and respectful demeanor to honor the memory of the victims.

Remember, Auschwitz is a place of immense historical significance and tragedy. It is essential to approach the visit with sensitivity and an understanding of the gravity of the events that transpired there.

[stonehengetickets]

Book Your Auschwitz Tours 2023

Book Your Auschwitz Tours 2023 now to embark on a profound and educational journey into one of history's darkest chapters. Our expertly guided tours offer a poignant exploration of Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Immerse yourself in the haunting remnants of this solemn site, as knowledgeable guides provide deep insights into the Holocaust. Witness the harrowing exhibits, gas chambers, and barracks, paying homage to the victims. Book today for an unforgettable experience that fosters remembrance and understanding of this tragic period in human history.

[and-despair]

Auschwitz building 2024

From my visit to Poland in February

[panevanbuckley]

wait until the people pissed off about touring the titanic find out that you can take a tour around auschwitz

[pointlesshroom]

i was so excited to sell my first tour - we get a percentage from it - but there was only one spot left and it was a couple 😭

[freewalkers]

Witnessing Auschwitz

Our trio of American explorers in Poland ends with a somber visit to the Auschwitz-Berkenau museum and grounds. Truly a place of shock, silence and wonder. We all wonder if this could possibly happen again.

We decided to add a visit to the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau as a final point of interest on our genealogical trip to Poland. It was about an hour and a half cab ride north of Krakow. As you can imagine, touring a concentration camp is not a pleasant task, but it was an important one for a trip themed around life and death. All of our sources suggested purchasing tour tickets well in…

[cherylmmbookblog]

#Blogtour The Fighter of Auschwitz by Erik Brouwer

It’s a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Fighter of Auschwitz by Erik Brouwer. About the Author Erik Brouwer is a Dutch sports journalist and the author of eight historical non-fiction titles on topics as diverse as Argentine football and the actress Jetta Goudal. Spartacus, his book about Jewish Olympic athletes at the start of the Second World War, won the Nico Scheepmaker award for…

[vacationguidesblog]

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[art-thropologist]

20/6/23

With all the news about the sub going missing around the Titanic and OceanGate, I would like to state very clearly that the Titanic is considered an active graveyard/burial. There are likely still remains in the wreck (science side of Tumblr can explain). This is one of the reasons why pulling up artifacts is such a big deal and so rarely done. Engagement is carried out with so much respect and consideration for the victims and their descendants.

You don’t just decide I’ll pop over to this location of massive trauma and tragedy because it’s a popular culture icon I can brag about. This is not the frame of mind one should have when visiting a grave. Please recognize that for 1500 souls this was not where they wanted to rest, and is thus very different from visiting other famous graves (Oscar Wilde, Van Gogh, etc). And sure, maybe the Titanic seems like it would be more digestible as opposed to other thanotourist sites of human violence (ie Gettysburg, Auschwitz, Borden House). The fact that it was a natural disaster lessens the cognitive dissonance of it being of equal solemnity.

What OceanGate is doing with these tours is extremely offensive if not ethically unsound from my archaeological and anthropological position.

[jewish-sideblog]

During last year’s Chanukkah, I toured Yad Vashem. My tour guide ended with a story that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life.

A Jewish father and his son are held prisoner in Auschwitz— they are lucky, all things considered. Most Jews were gassed upon arrival. The Nazi guards instruct the prisoners that they have to dig mass graves for their fellow Jews every day. The father is appalled by this, of course, but he doesn’t have much choice. A week goes by, and the father and the son are subjected to horrors they could not have imagined before. The first Friday evening in Auschwitz, the father goes to his son and says, “I cannot work on Shabbat. I will not dig graves for Jews on Shabbat. For all my other reservations, I cannot do it, because the Talmud forbids it.” The son is barely fourteen, but he knows that if his father refuses to work, then his father will die. So he goes to meet another prisoner, a former Rabbi. The son pleads with the Rabbi to help his father see sense, and so the Rabbi and the son go together to meet with the father.

“The Talmud forbids us to work on Shabbat,” the Rabbi says, “but pikuach nefesh overrides Talmudic law when a life is in danger. Your life is in danger. Your son’s life is in danger. You are allowed to work on Shabbat.” The father begrudgingly agrees, and he saves his family’s life by digging mass graves on the day of rest.

A few months go by, and the Nazis are running low on food, so they start grinding pig hooves and guts into the slop that gets fed to the prisoners at Auschwitz. The father finds out about this and begins to starve himself. “G-d commands in the Torah us not to eat pork,” he says. The son, out of concern for his father, gets the Rabbi again. “Pikuach nefesh overrides the Torah as well as the Talmud. You must eat, for your life and for your son’s sake. Eat what is given to you. G-d will overlook violating kosher if it means surviving in a place like this.” So the father starts to eat what he is given.

Miraculously, the father and the son survive until winter. There’s never enough food for all the prisoners in Auschwitz to eat, and so there are frequent fights over scraps, but the most valuable thing in the slop is fat. Fat can keep you warmer in the winter, and it can be used to cover up and heal small injuries. If the Nazi guards noticed so much as a scratch on you, they would send you to the gas chambers that same day. Fat was gold in Auschwitz. At some point, the son noticed that the father had been ignoring food and collecting fat. He wasn’t trading it for scraps or favors, he was just keeping it. And he was starving to keep it. So once again, the son and the Rabbi approached the father.

“I’m turning it into a candle,” he said, “for Channukah.” The son and the Rabbi were appalled. The Rabbi said, “Channukah is a cultural holiday. It is not ordained by G-d. Neither the Torah nor the Talmud command you to celebrate it. Why in G-ds name would you sacrifice your food for that?” The father replied,

“You can live three days without water. You can live three weeks without food. But you cannot live three minutes without hope.”

The son and the Rabbi helped the father fashion wicks from rags and clothes, and helped steal small bits metal of metal off corpses and guards to make a spark. They lit Channukah candles in the middle of a Nazi concentration camp. The father and the son survived off of hope for the rest of that year, and they both lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz. The father died soon afterwards, but the son, Hugo Gryn, went on to become a Rabbi himself. In fact, the Rabbi of West London Synangoue, and the leader of the British Reform movement. He was described as the most beloved Rabbi in the country. He never lost sight of hope.

[taruntravell]

A Journey Through History: Exploring Auschwitz on a Guided Tour

Exploring Auschwitz tours on a guided tour is a powerful and somber journey through one of the most notorious concentration camps from World War II. Auschwitz, located near the town of Oświęcim in Poland, was a complex of Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps where over a million people, mostly Jews, were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. A guided tour provides visitors with a comprehensive understanding of the history and the atrocities committed at this site.

Before the Tour:

Research and Preparation:

Before the tour, it's essential to educate yourself about the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Familiarize yourself with the timeline, key events, and the scale of the atrocities.

Reservations:

Auschwitz-Birkenau is a popular destination, and reservations are often required for guided tours. Check the official Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum website for information on ticketing and reservations.

During the Tour:

Arrival:

The tour usually begins at the main entrance of Auschwitz I. Visitors are provided with headphones to hear the guide clearly as they lead the group through the various parts of the camp.

Auschwitz I:

The first part of the tour typically includes the original camp, Auschwitz I. Here, visitors see the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, barracks, and various exhibitions displaying personal belongings, photographs, and documents from the victims.

Exhibits:

Guides often explain the historical context, describe the living conditions of prisoners, and share stories of resistance and resilience. Exhibits may include the hair of victims, shoes, glasses, and other personal items, underscoring the scale of human suffering.

Block 11 and the Death Wall:

Block 11, known as the "Death Block," housed the camp's detention cells and the standing cells. The Death Wall is where many prisoners were executed. Guides provide chilling accounts of the brutality that took place here.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau:

The tour usually continues to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the larger and more infamous part of the complex. Visitors see the remains of the gas chambers, crematoria, and the vast selection and execution areas.

Reflection Points:

Throughout the tour, there are moments for reflection. Guides encourage visitors to contemplate the historical significance of the site and the impact of the Holocaust on humanity.

After the Tour:

Debriefing:

Many guided tours include a debriefing session where participants can ask questions, share their thoughts, and discuss the emotional impact of the visit.

Memorializing:

Consider participating in memorial activities, such as lighting a candle or laying flowers at the memorial sites, as a way to pay respects to the victims.

Education and Advocacy:

Use the experience to further educate others about the Holocaust, the consequences of hatred, and the importance of promoting tolerance and understanding.

Visiting Auschwitz on a guided tour is a profoundly moving and educational experience, providing a stark reminder of the importance of preserving historical memory and working towards a more compassionate world.

[matan4il]

I have a query and I'm sorry that this question is going to upset you in advance. I see a post circling on here about Holocaust survivors apparently saying that Palestinians are exactly like them during attacks on Gaza. I just scroll past it because I have poor attention span that cannot stay focused more than one sentence but I wanted to know your opinion on this post or if you have seen it. Again, deep apologies that this ask is upsetting. Thank you for still being here and sharing with us.

Hi Nonnie!

Thank you for the kind way you approached this.

I have seen a post that might be the one you're referring to... It's a screenshot of a tweet:

The original tweet shows an interview with one Holocaust survivor. The response falsely expands this to survivors, in the plural, as if this one tweet shows a whole movement of Holocaust survivors, that people simply refuse to listen to.

The original tweet comes from an account that calls itself a "media company," but has no website (something I would expect from an actual media company), and is at least 80% tweets that are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. I'll give you an example. We all know Elon Musk has allowed antisemitism to thrive on Twitter, all kinds of it, including the white supremacist type, and others that have nothing to do with Israel. In an attempt to educate him, he was invited to a tour of Auschwitz. But apparently, according to this "media company," that was just meant to stop anti-genocide speech on his social media platform:

Of the up to 20% of tweets this "media company" posts or shares, many are anti-democratic or in support of dictatorial regimes.

This account also amplified the words of Julius Malema, leader of the South African EFF party, as he justified the Oct 7 massacre, and demanded support for the (genocidal) Hamas and its "resistance."

Malema himself has repeatedly sang, "Kill the Boer," a song which many understand as a genocidal chant against the Boers, the South Africans of Dutch descent. This guy is a controversial figure at best, doesn't seem to have an issue with an actual genocide, and this "media company" upholds his words as if he is a role model.

But if this account tweets Israel hate, then I guess the Tumblr user who passed the tweet along has no issue with how questionable of a source this is.

I recognized the face of the survivor. This is what it looks like in the cut off screenshot in the Tumblr post I saw:

So how did I recognize him? Because the number of anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors is SO small (around 5), and I have seen every single one of them repeatedly tokenized by antisemites so much, that I'm familiar with the name and face of each. The man in this vid is Hajo Meyer, who died in 2014. He couldn't possibly make any comments about Hamas' massacre on Oct 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza since, unless this "media company" has managed to somehow contact the afterlife. Here's a screenshot from Google, showing a recent re-upload of this vid to IG:

And here's a very brief bio, mentioning his date of death:

I'm guessing that "media company" didn't name him, or specify the date out of the vid, because it didn't want people to know the guy was dead, and the views he expressed were pre-Hamas' massacre.

Hajo Meyer was, without a doubt, an anti-Zionist. But would he still be using this rhetoric after Oct 7, after the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, after better understanding the kind of threat that Israel and Jews worldwide (since Hamas has tried to target Jews in European countries as well, including in the Netherlands, where Meyer lived) are facing from this genocidal terrorist organization ruling Gaza? IDK. I'd like to think he would be better than to continue distorting the Holocaust through this false comparison, but I can't say for sure, and I'm not about to claim that I do, putting words in his mouth just to exploit a dead Holocaust survivor. The fact that the anti-Israel crowd would continue to tokenize (meaning, exploit) a dead survivor like that, as if anyone could know for sure that Meyer would continue to toe the same line, just shows there really is no moral low they can't stoop to.

And here I wanna emphasize how wrong this antisemitic practice is, tokenizing Jews. Because no marginalized group is immune to the hatred spread against it, there will ALWAYS be some of its members, who will internalize and embrace poison aimed at it. There were gay Nazis (the notorious Ernest Roehm was the highest ranking one) and we also have contemporary gay neo-Nazis. So, should we use them in order to pretend that Nazi ideology is not homophobic? That it didn't harm hundreds of thousands of gay people? No, we know that the overwhelming majority of gay people suffered due to it, and would insist that Nazism IS homophobic. So, using those few exceptions to ignore (and embolden) the homophbia of this ideology, ends up being homophobic in itself. Embracing the unrepresentative few over the representative, mainstream majority of a marginalized group in "exonerating" what the group says is hateful and harmful towards it, ends up being hateful and harmful in itself.

And that's what people who only listen to the few anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors are doing. They're basically saying, "Listen to Holocaust survivors!" but they mean only the few who say what the anti-Israel movement does. All the other survivors they ignore, dismiss, silence or even erase.

They're ignoring the voices of the overwhelming majority of Holocaust survivors who WERE (and are) Zionist. Who do not agree with this distorted narrative. Yad Vashem estimates that two thirds of Holocaust survivors came to Israel at the end of WWII, and many more supported Israel even when they chose to settle elsewhere. Just recently, we had a group of 870 American survivors (along with their descendants, altogether 2,500 Jews) thank Biden for standing with Israel after the Hamas massacre. These anti-Israel haters are also erasing the survivors who were themselves targeted on Oct 7, whether threatened, kidnapped, injured or murdered (I've talked about several in my posts on this blog). This anti-Israel mob is exploiting Hajo Meyer even in ignoring that if he had been alive and present in Israel, even just to visit a friend or family member, he would have been targeted, too. These haters are ignoring survivors who said that what Hamas has done is similar to what the Nazis did (I've talked about several of them in my posts on this blog, too. All can be found in my Israel tag).

It is unconscionable, to treat most Holocaust survivors like they don't count, and only see a (literal) handful of anti-Zionist ones as if they do. And it certainly does NOT show the respect the anti-Israel haters imply survivors are owed, through the demand that we all defer to the opinion of the survivors, but ONLY the few anti-Zionist ones.

All that said, off the top of my head, here's a small number of HUGE differences between the Holocaust, and the Israeli-Arab conflict, and anyone ignoring them IS guilty of distorting the Holocaust.

-> The Holocaust did NOT start due to Jews repeatedly murdering Germans on German soil, in an attempt to keep Germans down and prevent them from establishing self rule in the German ancestral land. The Holocaust was completely unprovoked, unjustified and one-sided. Every oppressive measure taken by the Nazis against the Jews, was motivated by antisemitism, and was NOT a reaction to Jewish anti-German terrorism, that the Nazis had to protect their German citizens from. Speaking of unprovoked, unjustified and for a very long time one-sided, that describes the Arab anti-Jewish violence that preceded the establishment of the State of Israel by almost 100 years. But Jewish self-defense in this conflict, which only started about 50 years after said violence began, was provoked, was justified, was a response to what was done to the Jews first.

-> The Holocaust did NOT consist of Jews on German soil collaborating militarily with several Jewish countries surrounding Germany, with the goal of these combined Jewish armies invading and wiping it off the map, in order to prevent German self rule. Guess what the Arabs did to the Jews...

-> The Holocaust did NOT entail repeated German efforts to find a solution for how Jews and Germans could live together on the same land. In pre-state Israel, Jews did try repeatedly to reach an understanding that would allow Jews and Arabs to peacefully share (and co-exist in) the Jewish ancestral land.

-> When Jews finally started rebelling against the Nazis, they did NOT try to get as many Jewish civilians as possible killed. On the contrary, the outbreak of the most famous Jewish revolt, the one in the Warsaw Ghetto, was postponed until the Nazis entered, and the Jewish fighters believed this to be the final 'liquidation' of the ghetto (meaning, the deportation and extermination of the roughly 60,000 Jews still alive there). Only then did they fight back, because (in their own words), they did not want their decision to rebel to cost another Jew "even one hour of life." Compare that to how Hamas has been using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Or even to the Arab leadership back in 1948, which did not hesitate in risking or displacing the entire Arab population in the Land of Israel, in favor of fighting what they called "an extermination war" against the Jews.

-> The Holocaust did NOT see a single day where Germans worked en masse to try and alleviate the suffering of Jews, whether by providing them with humanitarian aid, or by moving them to areas where they would be safe from death. That's in direct contrast to Israel's efforts to make Palestinians' lives better, whether through humanitarian aid, work permits in Israel that guarantee a higher salary and better social rights, medical treatments, warnings when a terrorist target is about to be struck, etc.

-> The Holocaust was NOT supposed to end with even one Jew alive at the end of it. The Germans were going for total extermination of the Jewish people. All Jews who had German citizens were stripped of it in 1935, even before the most murderous parts of this genocide commenced. In contrast, Israel did NOT seek to kill all Arabs, there were many calls for Arabs not to flee Israel and the war which the Arab leadership had started, at the end of the war Israel gave citizenship to 150,000 Arabs who did not leave and did not take arms against Jews, and there was even an offer for tens of thousands of Arabs to return (Weitzmann presented it to the UN), if they do so peacefully. Just a few thousands accepted that offer, but those who did, got citizenship and land.

-> The Nazis were so eager to kill every Jew, that they came to the conclusion they HAD to industrialize their genocide of the Jewish people. That's why they built extermination camps with gas chambers at their core. Auschwitz alone could, on certain days, kill about 20,000 people. No Jew was meant to leave those camps alive. The crematoria were mass murder factories. ANY crime that you want to compare to the Holocaust specifically, you have to show that it includes this industrialization element. Currently, NO GENOCIDE, no matter how horrific, has. And God help us all, I hope it stays that way (this is one of the reasons why the Holocaust mustn't be distorted or minimized. We can't prevent something from happening, if we don't understand what HAS happened, and that we're trying to stop from being repeated). There is not a SINGLE thing in the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict that comes CLOSE to being an industrialized form of massacre. Even the brutality of Hamas on Oct 7, the single bloodiest day in the history of this conflict for either side, doesn't come close.

-> While there are still Jews around, meaning the Holocaust as conceptualized by the Nazis failed, it was so deadly, that it DID lead to the murder of around 70-80% of the Jews living under the Nazi occupation over a short number of years. Even more than 80 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jews have not recovered demographically. Meanwhile, the Palestinian population has increased by about 10 times since Israel's Independence War. But let's say people wanna claim that just this current war is comparable to the Holocaust. There are presently around 7 million Arabs in the territories of the Jewish ancestral land, of which about 2 million are Israeli citizens. I'm gonna go with the anti-Israel narrative for a second, which claims ALL of them are occupied and oppressed by Israel (even though they're not). In order for the ruin of Palestinians to be indeed on the same level, that would mean 70-80% of them would have to be murdered by Israel during the war. Let's go with the lower percent, so it's easier for the anti-Israel crowd to reach the number of deaths that would support their claim. To have killed 70% of 7 million, that would mean Israel would have to kill 4.9 million Arabs in this so-called "genocide." Even if we exclude Israeli Arabs, and only focus on the 5 million Palestinians living in areas where the Israeli army currently operates (imagine the German Nazis allowing Jews safety inside Germany, and only killing them outside it *eyeroll*), that would mean at least 3.5 million Palestinians killed. But after almost 5 months of this war, the number of Palestinian fatalities, as claimed by Hamas, is around 30,000 people (I'm putting aside the fact that at least 12,000 are Hamas terrorists). The gap between what is happening, and what people who make this false comparison are implying is happening, is incomprehensible.

Sorry for the length, but I hope this is helpful!

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[applesauce42069]

The house that Höss, the kommandant of Auschwitz, lived in with his family, is actually privately owned and does not belong to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, though we were allowed to enter the gardens on a specialized study tour. I’ve been twice. In the moment you’re just.. there, but thinking about the fact that I stood on the ground and here that family partied and dined and played with while they were were running the genocide of my people… it makes me want to throw up a bit.

Anyways, last time I was there, while the researcher was speaking I noticed she was standing in front of a little worm. She almost took a step back onto it and I put out my hands and told her to stop. Everyone acknowledged the worm, and I moved it, and it was kind of awkward and then we just moved on.

I’m not like a bug killer or anything but im also not super sentimental about it. But there, in that space, it felt wrong. It felt like nothing should be killed there.

[ladiablesse]

what yall aren’t gonna do is invalidate plantation tours as a whole and act as though they are inherently bad. like ik the whitney plantation in nola does a really good job of providing a space for education and mourning that centers the lives of the enslaved without any mysticism or fetishization. it’s important that those sites exist to preserve history in the same way that it’s important sites like auschwitz are preserved. but like if you’re going to do it you have to do it right the stakes are too high and you cannot afford to allow any space for trivialization. that being said i feel like it takes effort to do something as evil as host/attend a haunted plantation tour. like you must want to burn for eternity.

[batboyblog]

musk bring his toddler son for Auschwitz. this is sick to see him bring his son for piggyback to holocaust memorial tour as Disneyland. the children under 14 allowed visit Auschwitz

I was much more disgusted by how the first thing he said after touring Auschwitz was

yes X could have stopped the Holocaust.... he went an main charactered himself about the Holocaust after touring Auschwitz, what a turd.

which would be bad all on its own, if Twitter wasn't FLOODED with Nazis right now, FLOODED with holocaust denial and Nazism, he had the nerve to claim its better than other platforms.... well maybe TikTok the subbasement of Jew hate at the moment, but twitter's unhinged Jew bashing is something.

any ways I think its important to bring kids to these places and tell the story but maybe Joe Biden is right when he brought each of his grandkids there at 14, for sure Musk being his 3 year old human prop X was questionable at best and coming from Musk, inappropriate.

[darkelfchicksick]

lost klimt portrait shows up in vienna :0

Fräulein Lieser ("Miss Lieser") has never been on public display since its creation in 1917 - you are now looking at the painting in color for (probably) the first time ever.

The current owner inherited the painting in 2022 - it originally came to be in the possession of their predecessors in the 1960s, but it is unclear how the painting came to be in the first buyer's possession. There is no information available about whether or not the painting had to be relinquished, was confiscated or sold under distress by the Lieser family after 1938. However, since the potential original owners were both forcibly dispossessed in 1938, documentation of the dispossession for this particular may have been lost.

On April 28th, the painting will be put up for auction at im Kinsky in Vienna, with the price being projected to be between 30 to 50 million euro. The legally unclear situation of whether or not the painting is Nazi-looted art is why the auction was commissioned by both the recent inheritor and the legal successors of Adolf Lieser and his sister-in-law Henriette Amelie "Lilly" Lieser, in accordance with the Washington Principles.

In the past, the depicted young woman was identified as Adolf's daughter Constance Margarethe Lieser, who would have been 18 years old during Klimt's creation of the painting. However, new research presented by the auction house im Kinsky has brought up doubts as to who the depicted "Miss Lieser" actually is. Adolf's sister-in-law Lilly Lieser, who had married and later divorced Adolf's brother Julius, was a patron of the arts and might have commissioned a painting of either of her daughters, Helene and Annie Lieser. Klimt himself never identified the commissioning customer beyond "Lieser" and died in 1918, before the painting was finished.

Lilly Lieser was a central patron of art and music in fin de siécle Vienna. She is especially well-known for her financial support of Arnold Schöneberg and was an avid art collector. For years, her best friend was Alma Mahler-Werfel. Both Adolf and Lilly Lieser were dispossessed in 1938 and later deported to Riga and/or Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Details to Margarethe's life aren't readily available, she died in London in 1943 or 44. Helene Lieser, who had been the first woman in Austria to get a PhD in political sciences, fled Austria in 1938 and ended up in Geneva. After the war, she lived in Paris, working for UNESCO, OEEC and the International Economic Association. She died from cancer in 1962 in Vienna. Annie Lieser, who was a celebrated interpretative dancer, married Austrian artist Hans Sidonius Becker. In 1938, her and their son Johann managed to flee to the US. Hans Becker was active in the Austrian resistance movement and annulled their marriage in 1941 to marry another woman. Annie probably never went back to Austria but kept contact with several other Austrian emigrants in California, among them Alma Mahler-Werfel and Luzie Korngold. She died in Los Angeles in 1972.

The painting will be shown to the public from April 10th at im Kinsky in Vienna as well as during a projected world tour to Asia, Europe and the USA.

Sources:

Olga Kronsteiner, DER STANDARD 25.01.2024

Wikipedia: Henriette Amalie Lieser, Helene Lieser, Hans Sidonius Becker

Alexandra Matzner, ART IN WORDS 25.01.2024

Valerie Gaber, im Kinsky 25.01.2024

Alexandra Löw, BiografiA Annie Becker

Anna Amilar, BiografiA Henriette Amelie Lieser, Website

Photograph of Bildnis Fräulein Lieser © Auktionshaus im Kinsky GmbH, Vienna