The archive was donated by Marek Trybulski, a numismatist from the southern Polish city of Kraków, after the documents were brought to his coin shop by a woman who was unsure what to do with them.
According to the museum, the collection includes letters, postcards, parcel receipts and other documents related to Nowak, who was deported to Auschwitz on June 26, 1941.
At Auschwitz, Nowak worked in prisoner hospitals, primarily in the infectious diseases ward of Block 20. He cooperated with fellow prisoner Stanisław Głowa, an orderly who helped care for sick inmates.
Despite severe restrictions, prisoners assigned to hospital duties tried to save fellow inmates from death or selection for execution whenever possible, the museum said.
On February 18, 1942, Nowak was transferred to the Majdanek concentration camp with three other doctors to help organise prisoner hospitals there.
He was later sent to the Gross-Rosen camp and then to Leitmeritz, a subcamp of Flossenbürg in what is now the Czech Republic, where he remained until liberation.
After the war, Nowak testified in investigations and trials involving former SS doctors and Erich Muhsfeldt, an SS officer responsible for crimes committed at Auschwitz, Majdanek and other camps.
Wojciech Płosa, head of the museum's archives, said such extensive collections relating to a single prisoner are rarely donated.
"The large number of letters sent to Jan Nowak by his relatives, both to Auschwitz and to Majdanek, is particularly significant," Płosa said. "They show how important it was for prisoners to maintain ties with their families despite imprisonment. Those bonds gave them hope and the strength to survive."
Trybulski said he was especially moved by a Christmas letter from Nowak's mother that featured a hand-drawn Christmas tree.
"For a man imprisoned in a concentration camp, this small drawing must have replaced all the Christmases he had previously spent with his family," he said, adding that the correspondence reflected Nowak's deep religious faith.
"I saw no other option than to place these documents in the hands of professionals," Trybulski said. "They are part of the history of the camp and of one individual. Documents like these should not be traded."
Museum Director Piotr Cywiński praised the donation, saying every recovered document helps preserve the memory of Nazi crimes.
"Every document adds to our knowledge, and every fact emerging from such letters becomes part of our shared historical memory," Cywiński said.
Prisoners at Auschwitz were allowed to send and receive only heavily censored correspondence under strict rules. Letters had to be written in German, and inmates were required to state that they were in good health, regardless of their actual condition.
Jewish prisoners and Soviet prisoners of war were generally barred from sending correspondence.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum commemorates the victims of the Nazi German camp, where about 1.1 million people—mostly Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others—were murdered during World War II.
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Source: Auschwitz Museum, PAP