Irena Strzelecka

Irena Strzelecka (4 January 1940 – 31 May 2017) was a Polish historian and senior custodian of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland.{{cite news |last1=Piętka |first1=Bohdan |title=Nie żyje Irena Strzelecka, starszy kustosz Państwowego Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau |url=https://dziennikzachodni.pl/nie-zyje-irena-strzelecka-starszy-kustosz-panstwowego-muzeum-auschwitzbirkenau/ar/12143637 |work=Dziennik Zachodni |date=3 March 2017 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200107023139/https://dziennikzachodni.pl/nie-zyje-irena-strzelecka-starszy-kustosz-panstwowego-muzeum-auschwitzbirkenau/ar/12143637 |archive-date=7 January 2020 |language=Polish |url-status=live |access-date=7 January 2020 }}{{cite book|editor-last1=Długoborski |editor-first1=Wacław |editor-last2=Piper |editor-first2=Franciszek |editor-link2=Franciszek Piper|title=Auschwitz, 1940–1945. Central Issues in the History of the Camp| title-link=Auschwitz 1940–1945 |volume=V: Epilogue |date=2000 |publisher=Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum |location=Oświęcim |chapter=About the authors |page=288 (285–289) |isbn=978-8385047872}} She was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for her work on the history of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The author of over 30 articles on the camp, Strzelecka wrote about its hospitals, its medical experiments, and the situation of its female prisoners.{{cite book | editor1-last = Gutman | editor1-first = Yisrael | editor1-link=Israel Gutman |editor2-last = Berenbaum | editor2-first = Michael | editor2-link=Michael Berenbaum |title = Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp | chapter = Contributors | page = xiii (xi–xiv) | year = 1998 | orig-year = 1994 | publisher = Indiana University Press | location = Bloomington, IN | isbn = 0-253-32684-2}} She was the author of several articles in the five-volume monograph Auschwitz 1940–1945 (2000), including on the camp's construction and the punishment of prisoners; she also helped to retrieve and document the history of several of the Auschwitz subcamps. With Franciszek Piper, she edited a series on Polish political prisoners sent to Auschwitz from Kraków, Lublin, Radom and Warsaw.

Strzelecka was born in Przemyśl. A graduate of the history and philosophy department at Jagiellonian University, she joined the Department of Historical Research of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 1965.