The Auschwitz museum announced last week that it would publish 22 sketches apparently drawn by one of the camp's Jewish inmates.

The drawings depict the daily routines, and sometimes the imminent deaths, of those interred in the camp.

The sketches were found in 1947 by Jozef Odi, a prisoner and later a guard. Odi discovered the drawings packed into a bottle which had been hidden under one of the prisoners' barracks. This will be the first time that the sketches have been made public.

Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the museum, said that the sketches were probably created in 1943 by an anonymous Jewish prisoner. Most were drawn in pencil, and have been well preserved.

Another museum spokesman said: "These are shocking images document the lives of prisoners and record how they were sent to their deaths."