About Alan Jacobs

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Alan Jacobs Auschwitz photographer and transpersonal psychologist
03/01/1935 – 07/30/2022

Photographer, writer, psychotherapist exploring power

Alan Jacobs was a psychotherapist, and also an author and independent researcher on issues related to genocide and the abuse of power.

He has been to Auschwitz and Birkenau many times. During those visits, he interviewed numerous survivors and took many photographs of the camps. He also spent many hours viewing artifacts, art and photographs stored at the Auschwitz Museum Archives.

He produced a film using his own photography, as well as art done by survivors telling stories of life in Auschwitz. The film has been shown in universities and cultural centers. He has also had several shows of his Auschwitz photographs.

He has published several articles in the Transactional Analysis Journal and elsewhere on the structure of dictatorship and has been writing fiction for some time. His major theoretical preoccupations involve reformulation, new directions and social/psychological applications of Transactional Analysis theory.

He is the winner of the 1996 Eric Berne Memorial Award for social applications of theory related to autocratic power, nationalism, aspects of survival, and explanations of why people commit mass murder and genocide:

Year: 1996
Name: Alan Jacobs
Subject Area/Area of Contribution: Theory: Transactional Analysis and Social Applications
Works Cited: “Autocratic Power,” TAJ, 17, 59-71 (1987); “Nationalism,” TAJ, 20, 21-228 (1990); “Aspects of
Survival: Triumph over Death and Onliness,” TAJ, 21, 4-11 (1991); “Autocracy: Groups, Organizations, Nations,
and Players,” TAJ, 21, 199-206 (1991)

Jacobs was the editor of Idea, an e-journal of articles, stories and reviews dedicated to discussion and exploration of psychosocial aspects of cults, totalism, autocracy, war, genocide and holocaust.

He has conducted workshops for professional therapists as well as business and other types of organizations exploring the use of power in the USA, Lithuania, Russia and the Netherlands.

Please contact us with questions related to Alan Jacobs and related exhibits.

Project Teams

Alan Jacobs

Photography and captions

Krysia Hnatowicz Jacobs

Web Design

Jesse Jacobs

Location assistant and video

Related Sites

Alan Jacobs 1979 First Visit to Auschwitz
https://www.ideajournal.com/birkenau79

Jacobs Photos
https://www.jacobsphotos.com

IDEA, a journal of social issues
https://www.ideajournal.com

H-genocide mailing list
https://www.h-net.org/~genocide

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank:
The State Museum at Auschwitz/Birkenau
for their assistance in research for this exhibit and for the photographic reproductions of the artwork.


Adam Koscielniak,
the artist’s son, for graciously granting permission to use his late father’s work.


Declan Dunn
for his unwavering devotion to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by building and maintaining Remember.org.

Artists Who Inspired Alan’s Work

Mieczysław Kościelniak (Polish pronunciation: [mjɛˈt͡ʂɨswaf kɔˈɕt͡ɕɛlɲak]; was a Polish painter, brother of Władysław Kościelniak.
Mieczysław Kościelniak – Polish painter and survivor. By www.slupsk.pl, Attribution, Link

Mieczysław Kościelniak

Arrested in 1941 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He drew about 300 paintings depicting the everyday life of prisoners.  His work is currently displayed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. 

During his imprisonment, he met Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest murdered in Auschwitz and canonized in 1982.

Jerzy Potrzebowski 

Polish painter, underground activist during  World War II, prisoner of Auschwitz. He later participated in exhibitions in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznań, and Katowice. 

Jerzy Potrzebowski Go to Sleep
His works devoted to his stay in 
German concentration camps are located at 
the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.
Women in the cold, in the women’s camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, B1A, probably just before the Appel, or Roll Call. The only well-fed woman in the scene is at lower left with the armband CAPO. Painting: Janina Tollik Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Painting by Janina Tollik – Survivor

Janina Tollik

At Auschwitz, worked in the penal company. There she began sketching various scenes from camp life. She destroyed many of the works, believing that no one needed them.

Władysław Siwek

In October 1940 he was imprisoned in Auschwitz, receiving camp number 5826.

Alongside projects commissioned by the SS, he risked his life to create portraits of fellow prisoners, completing about two thousand in Auschwitz. Many of these portraits were sent home by the prisoners to their families.

Painting of dog attacking by Wladyslaw Siwek, artist survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau
Painting of dog attacking by Wladyslaw Siwek

Jan Komski

Alan Jacobs passed away in 2022. We miss him dearly at Remember.org.

©1980, 1996, 2003, 2004, 2022 Alan Jacobs
All rights reserved

CREDITS AND COPYRIGHT

The Virtual Tour of Auschwitz photos by Alan Jacobs.

This exhibition was prepared by invitation from
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oswiecim, Poland

Photographs taken in Auschwitz and Birkenau in the years 2003-2004.

They were then converted into one of the first VR tours by Krysia Jacobs.
Updated in 2022 to a video-based Virtual Tour of Auschwitz.

© 2003, 2004 Alan Jacobs all rights reserved

All artist reproductions courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive.

Please contact us with questions related to Alan Jacobs’ exhibit.