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The moment of shock is just unforgettable.
From CBC and the BBC World Service.
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Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
I'm Shirley Gilbert and you're listening to Songs from Auschwitz.
I'm in the corridor of an old office building in southern Poland.
I've come here to meet with the historian Teresa von Torczyka.
We're standing amid the ruins of Auschwitz II Birkenau, the segment of the Auschwitz complex where the gas chambers and crematoria were located.
I have letter written by.
It's a hot, windy day and we've stepped out of the sun for a moment so Teresa can show me some old maps, questionnaires and fading letters.
That's amazing.
And she's writing in German.
All of them relate to one person, a former Auschwitz inmate named Krystyna Przewulska.
I'm a writer, historian and musician.
And over the last 30 years I've studied the fate of the Jewish people during the Nazi era and the music that they made.
Krystyna Przewulska and her creative work is distinct.
Przewulska was very important, one of the most important writers describing the camp.
Written in the very early period after the war.
Przewulska was 28 years old when she was sent to Auschwitz in 1943.