saving authenticity —common responsibility 66th anniversary of the

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O ŚW I ĘC I M
PEOPLE
CULTURE
I S S N 1 8 9 9-4407
HISTORY
SAVING AUTHENTICITY
—COMMON RESPONSIBILITY
66TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION
OF AUSCHWITZ
no. 26 February 2011
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 26, February 2011
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History,
Culture magazine
PUBLISHER:
Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum
www.auschwitz.org.pl
PARTNERS:
Jewish
Center
www.ajcf.pl
Center for Dialogue
and Prayer
Foundation
www.centrum-dialogu.oswiecim.pl
International Youth
Meeting Center
www.mdsm.pl
IN COOPERATION
WITH:
Kasztelania
www.kasztelania.pl
State Higher
Vocational School
ol
in Oświęcim
www.pwsz-oswiecim.pl
i i
l
Editorial address:
„Oś – Oświęcim, Ludzie,
Historia, Kultura”
Państwowe Muzeum
Auschwitz-Birkenau
ul. Więźniów Oświęcimia 20
32-603 Oświęcim
e-mail: os@auschwitz.org.pl
The February issue of Oś is dominated by the events of January 27,
the 66th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi German
Concentration
and
Extermination
Camp of Auschwitz. In this issue you
can read an account of the ceremony
and the most important words that were
uttered during the event—speeches by
former prisoners as well as Presidents:
of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław
Komorowski, and the Federal Republic
of Germany, Christian Wulff. We also
write about the visit by the presidents to
the International Youth Meeting Center.
We handed over two pages of the
monthly to participants of the project entitled Memory and Commemoration in the
Era of Web 2.0. In the January seminar,
organized by Maximilian Kolbe Werk,
young people from several countries
took part. The articles in Oś are the first
effects of the group’s work in the press.
We would like to draw your attention to
an interview with one of the participants
of the project, Mustafa Yakupov from
Macedonia, as well as the photo essay.
In addition to that, in this volume you
can also read about an exhibit of items
donated by former prisoners and their
families to the Auschwitz Memorial Site.
The exhibition can be viewed at the Museum, and also on the website: www.
auschwitz.org.pl.
Presently, we also invite you for the
March review of films on Jewish topics at the Jewish Center. At the Monday
screenings, as many as 14 films will be
shown from the International Film Festival Jewish Motifs. The monthly Oś is one
of the media patrons of the event.
Paweł Sawicki
Editor-in-chief
os@auschwitz.org.pl
A GALLERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Within the confines of the
history of a given city, you
can take on one of its individual parts—squares, streets,
and give them particular attention.
And here, where we live,
such an initiative has taken
shape—the detailed description of one of our streets:
Jagiełły Street, divided into
its pre-War, Wartime, and
post-War history. Because
this used to be “my street,”
here are two small peeks into
its early post-War years.
In the 1950s, the villa of Kulczycki family, neighboring
the “small palace,” and the
two tenement buildings next
door were taken over by the
most important government
department of that period:
the Department of Security
[Urząd
Bezpieczeństwa]!
Among the many employees, who, once the time
came, left their place of work
on foot—because having a
private automobile was out
of the question then—there
were two… very pretty girls!
Perhaps they were humble
secretaries or typists, but
maybe they were vitally important assistants of their demanding bosses. Each day,
in the company of their uniformed and civilian clothed
colleagues, they walked past
our tenement building. During the years of general poverty and greyness, they were
something interesting and
attractive. They drew attention to themselves with their
beauty, their figure, and the
way they dressed. One day,
I noticed them from the balcony of our home, and I said
to my father, who was standing next to me: “Those girls
are pretty!” And all he said
was: “So, they’re even more
dangerous!”
The second episode occurred in the vicinity of the
first. Back then, within the
system of state radio broadcasts, there was a system of
so-called cable radio: speakers connected by cable to
a local headquarters that
transmitted a single channel of Polish Radio. These
were commonly known as
a “kołchoźnik” [a kolkhoz
worker], and I am not sure
if this was because of a foreign word affiliation, or
because of “the high quality and professional standard.” Where we lived, the
“kołchoźnik” headquarters
was in the post office building on Jagiełły Street. For
some time, the local radio
system broadcast its city information programs. They
were prepared by a “crazed
reporter”—a young man,
who always wore an undone red tie, whose image
was reflected in the window
when looking from the street
as he constantly rushed and
ran! The effect of his “editorial liveliness” was a weekly
program, lasting more than
a dozen minutes, dedicated
to life in the city, more pre-
cisely: the life and activities
of respective [Communist]
party cells within the city’s
workplaces. But this ended
quickly! The “Polish thaw”
came in October of 1956,
with Comrade “Wiesław”
at its fore. The “crazed reporter,” together with his
program disappeared from
the broadcasts, entering
the… history of the city and
the street! And cable radio
did rather well for a good
number of years!
Andrzej Winogrodzki
Photo from Mirosław Ganobis’s Collection
Editor:
Paweł Sawicki
Editorial secretary:
Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka
Editorial board:
Bartosz Bartyzel
Wiktor Boberek
Jarek Mensfelt
Olga Onyszkiewicz
Jadwiga Pinderska-Lech
Artur Szyndler
Columnist:
Mirosław Ganobis
Design and layout:
Agnieszka Matuła, Grafikon
Translations:
David R. Kennedy
Proofreading:
Beata Kłos
Cover:
Paweł Sawicki
Photographer:
Paweł Sawicki
EDITORIAL
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Jagiełły Street. Photo courtesy of Henryk Dera
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WE ARE FACING THE CHALLENGE OF SAVING
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL
J
“I wish to help preserve this
testimony as a living symbol
of genocide and intolerance.
I do so in remembrance of
all the victims who died in
Auschwitz-Birkenau and of
those who survived this hell.
I do so in view of what happened, what is happening
now, and what could happen
again,” we read in the Pledge,
which is available to be signed
on a special page at the Auschwitz Museum website.
Taking part in the anniversary of liberation were
former Auschwitz prisoners,
the presidents of the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany,
parliamentarians from the
Polish Sejm and the German
Bundestag, members of the
diplomatic corps, clergy, regional and local officials and
community leaders, invited
guests, and people wishing
to honor the memory of the
victims of the German Nazis.
In their remarks, speakers
drew attention to the need
to preserve the Memorial for
future generations. Former
Auschwitz prisoners Eva
Umlauf, August Kowalczyk,
and Professor Władysław
Bartoszewski were among
those who addressed the
gathering.
“By preventing Auschwitz
from decay we give a signal for resistance against the
Holocaust, which, according to the plans of the Nazis,
should be so total that no
trace of the victims would
remain, not even of the extermination process. For this
purpose we established the
Foundation Auschwitz-Birkenau, which collects money
for the preservation of the
former camp. We are appealing to the whole world for
support of this enterprise,”
said Professor Bartoszewski.
“Auschwitz plays an exceptionally important role as a
museum. I am pleased that
we are approaching the moment when we will be able
to say that, in the financial
sense and in the organizational sense, this place will be
permanently secure. It will
function permanently not
Photo: Paweł Sawicki
anuary 27, 2011 marks the passage of 66 years since the liberation of the German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz. During the anniversary observances Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, former
prisoner and initiator of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, addressed a special Appeal to the entire world
for help in maintaining the authentic original remains of the former camp.
only as a great affront to the
conscience, not only as the
unhealed wound, but also as
a place for thinking together
about the future of the world
and about the future of humanity,” said Polish President Bronisław Komorowski.
Germany has contributed
€60 million in support of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, and the country’s
president stressed that the
name “Auschwitz,” like no
other, symbolizes the crimes
that the Germans committed
against millions of human beings. “Unlike anything else,
the name «Auschwitz» stands
for the crimes perpetrated by
Germans against millions of
human beings. They fill us
Germans with disgust and
shame. They lay upon us a
historical responsibility that
is independent of individual
guilt,” said German President
Christian Wulff.
THE ADDRESS BY PROF. WŁADYSŁAW BARTOSZEWSKI
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It happened seventy years ago, on
Septembe r 21, 1940, in Warsaw. I
was eighteen years old, when the
Germans crammed me, together
with more than one thousand fellow sufferers, into a box car. The
train departed toward the unknown. We did not know that our
destination was the concentration
camp of Auschwitz. But even if we
had known about it, we would not
have had an idea about this place.
Next day none of us, lined up for
roll-call, could imagine that after
the first phase, when mostly Polish
political prisoners were committed to this camp, also prisoners
of war, soldiers of the Red Army
would arrive. That thereafter
women would come—first Polish,
later also those from other nations.
That the camps of Birkenau and
Monowitz would be established,
together with a network of smaller
sub-camps, and that here the total annihilation of the European
Jews, among them also the victims
of “Operation Reinhardt,” would
begin, as well as that of the Romanies, which all is subsumed with
the notion of “Genocide” and as
such has found entry into history.
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We, the survivors, have been trying hard during our whole life to
fulfill our commitment to those
who were mercilessly murdered
at Auschwitz. We bear witness to
the infernal events and we try hard
to prevent even the tiniest piece of
memory from falling into oblivion,
the memory not only of those victims whose names are known,
but also of the thousands of slain
children, men, and women who
most probably will remain forever
unknown. We have believed that
Auschwitz obliges also the following generations to live together in
respect for the dignity of man, as
well as to actively counter all manifestations of hate. Here, at the biggest cemetery—without graves—of
the Old Continent it can be seen
clearly which are the foundations
upon which we must build the European and the Global Community.
The last among us former prisoners are about to leave forever. One
day these ceremonies will be held
without the participation of former
prisoners, their families, their relatives. Our testimonies and reports
will remain. It is, however, of utmost and invaluable importance
that the place of memory itself
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Jerzy Buzek, President of the
European Parliament, sent a
special letter to those in attendance at the ceremony.
“I call on all countries to
commit themselves to maintaining this special place. By
supporting Auschwitz-Birkenau financially, we support
the testimony of our terrible
past,” he wrote. “Even in
times of crisis, or perhaps especially in times of crisis, we
must uphold the memory of
will be preserved in its physical appearance: the “blocks,” the
huts, the ramp and the ruins of gas
chambers and crematoria, as well
as those thousands of objects stolen from the murdered—suitcases,
shoes, spectacles, toothbrushes.
They are the silent witnesses of the
tragedy, heart-rendering proof of
the crimes, sacred relics of the slain.
By preventing Auschwitz from decay we give a signal for resistance
against the Holocaust, which, according to the plans of the Nazis,
should be so total that no trace of
the victims would remain, not even
of the extermination process. For
this purpose we established the
Foundation Auschwitz-Birkenau,
which collects money for the preservation of the former camp. We
are appealing to the whole world
for support of this enterprise.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is no ordinary
museum of martyrdom. It is a place
of murder. A cemetery. It must remain an eternally burning sore in
the flesh of mankind. On occasion
of this ceremony I have always reminded the audience that we must
do everything within our power
that the words of the Book of Job—a
book held in high esteem by Jews as
well as Christians—will be fulfilled:
“O earth, cover not thou my blood,
and let my cry have no place!”
what people are capable of
doing. We cannot erase this
from our memory.”
During the ceremony there
was also talk of the need to
prevent similar things from
happening today and in the
future. “We must do everything within our power
to prevent a repetition of
this tragic event. We must
combat all manifestations of
racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hate that could
lead to a new genocide. We
believe that commemorating
the victims of the Holocaust
will be a successful lesson to
this purpose,” stressed Zvi
Rav-Ner, the Ambassador of
Israel.
Representing the Roma community, Romani Rose said
that human rights and the
rights of minorities are inseparable. “For centuries, Sinti
and Romanies have been
residents of the countries of
Europe. They are an integral
part of European history
and culture. Discrimination,
rabble-rousing motivated by
racism, and violence against
Sinti and Romanies must be
ostracized as rigorously as
the various manifestations of
antisemitism by those who
are politically responsible
and by the European institutions. This is the lesson to be
learnt from Auschwitz,” he
said.
The ceremonies concluded
at the Monument to the Victims of the Camp, where
those in attendance placed
candles commemorating the
victims of Auschwitz while
rabbis and clergy of the various Christian faiths joined
together in reading the 42nd
Psalm
THE SPEECH OF AUGUST KOWALCZYK
Bunawerke’s march through the town
of Oświęcim. But only for the first
time. Later on it was easier, especially
when they were returning from work
at Dwory.
The most frequently repeated words:
B-u-r-i-a-l! B-u-r-i-a-l-s!
We carried those who had died from
exhaustion, from work exceeding their
physical strength, from a kapo’s club,
or an SS man’s bullet. A scraping, a
shuffling burial. The corpses of the
fallen, lifelessly hanging down, were
barefooted. Their shoes were carried
separately. So Death, captured in this
piece of wood, simulated a coffin, a little casket.
The clogs—the management of IG
Farben Auschwitz confirmed—are
limiting the worker’s performance.
One began to change them into various shoes from Army surplus. Shoes
from dead people were taken, shoes
from the so-called “Canada.”
So it was done ... !
From the ceiling of the basement, water drops were running down, along
the wall of Block 4. Joining they created
tiny rivulets, which were flowing the
faster, the more they were approaching the floor. Block #4 was the first of
the newly built “residential blocks”
and opened in December. In the basement there was one of the rooms. My
room. The new paper pallets, filled
with fresh straw and spread out along
the wall, got soaked with water.
Müller and I had our two meters of
concrete floor under the window in
the basement. There we laid down
our common pallet. We dragged it
like a sack of potatoes. It was heavy
and wet. Our wooden clogs, holenderki,
wrapped into our trousers, served as
pillows. We had one blanket for the
The town.
In the morning.
In fact, some time earlier—dawn is rising above the town, which is slowly
leaving its gentle rhythm of awakening.
Man is changing the feebleness of rest
to a hurry, accompanied by the recurring sounds of everyday life, so well
known that they have become nearly imperceptible. Above this town,
Oświęcim, however, a sound was
born, to which the locals, in the beginning, could not give a name—and
through this town Death was gliding
in wooden clogs, holenderki, Shoes of
Death.
—Where have you been, at that time—
and you, comrade with a number—
and you, who arrived together with
your granddad? And you, who knew
history only from school textbooks—
no, you haven’t yet been with us.
Where have you all been, in the spring
of 1941 at dawn?
Do you know that, at that time, the
town on the banks of the Soła river was
almost becoming S-h-u-f-f-l-e-t-o-w-n,
a place totally left to Death lurking in
wooden shoes and creeping closely
above the ground?
Man had little chance to survive the
day that was just breaking. Every step
was a mine that could go off through
the disgraceful action of a kapo or an
SS man. Blows were coming and going. Clubs and rifle butts. But he only
was stumbling.
Once again and a second time, and
then he didn’t lift his legs any more.
Shuffling he went ahead, with the
deadly piece of wood on his feet. And
the locals could not give a name to
this sound, to this scraping noise—in
the beginning isolated, later collectively—on the first day of the Kommando
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two of us. Sitting halfway upright and
leaning against the wall, we spent this
memorable evening in silence. We
were afraid of the words that desperately were pushing toward our lips. It
was Christmas Eve 1941.
The room, covered with pallets, was
filled with the longing, with the desperation of those who remembered
previous Christmas Eves in liberty. At
a certain moment, I noticed a prisoner
with a green triangle. He went past us
until the end of the room, returned,
and stopped before our pallet.
—What’s your name? — he asked me
in German.
—August.
—Do you like potato fritters?
My eyes surely expressed astonishment. Müller even burst out laughing.
—Yes, I do—I said resolutely, though
with an undertone of suspiciousness.
The German reached under his coat
and drew a mess tin from under his
arm.
—That’s for you and your comrade.
Merry Christmas!
—I don’t see your shoes—he suddenly
said in a casual tone.
—My clogs are under my head.
—I’ll be back in a few minutes for the
mess tin. Enjoy your meal!
Müller and I “broke” the last potato
fritter like a wafer. He was thinking of
this family at Radom, and I of mine at
Mielec and Dębica. Our benefactor returned. He took the mess tin and laid
a pair of leather jackboots upon my
blanket.
—May they serve you, August, and
bring you home safe and sound.—
And he disappeared!
Müller gazed in disbelief after him.
—An angel with a green triangle—he
whispered.
That was the one and only time I met
him. I never saw him before, and I have
never seen him later. The angel was a
German, a common criminal (green
triangle), who appeared on Christmas
Eve 1941, fed us with potato fritters,
gave me a pair of leather boots and
disappeared, for sure, to his “heaven,”
which he probably had within himself.
His wish, “May these boots bring you
home safe and sound,” however, was
only partially fulfilled.
They brought me half a year later to
the Königsgraben drainage ditch, from
where I escaped in a mass breakout
during the uprising of the penal company. The “Christmas boots,” however, remained in the brushwood at the
banks of the Vistula. I swam through
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the river barefoot. Here the dogs lost
my traces. It is impossible today to
elude the really magic meaning of
shoes in the life of a work slave of the
Third Reich and IG Farben Auschwitz.
With certainty one cannot foresee the
role objects are playing in our lives,
and I even dare say, nor what their
lives mean in our life.
Thirty years had passed, when the
“Christmas boots” reappeared. In the
1970s an East German company from
Babelsberg was shooting scenes of
the film Die Bilder des Zeugen Schattmann (The pictures of witness Schattmann) on the premises of the Museum
Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was about
the history of a Jewish couple in the
Auschwitz concentration camp. The
offer to play a prisoner, after having
played SS men in films and in television for many years, was tempting. An
important role played the fact that I
had my head shaven—at that time, I
was playing the Mephisto in Goethe’s
Faust on stage. I went to a casting session. It was the time of the transition
from winter to spring. Rests of snow
were lying between the blocks. The
film team had occupied Block 8. Once
upon a time my block. My former
room was serving as the costume depository. I did not have a problem with
choosing the striped prisoner’s dress. I
protested, however, when I was asked
to choose clogs, holenderki, from a huge
pile.
—Only leather boots!
The costume designer looked suspiciously at me, like at that kind of an
actor, who does not yet know what
he will play, but already has his own
ideas how to do it.
—Excuse me, Sir, I prepared myself
very carefully for this film, I studied
the documents, and I am insisting on
clogs.
I reached for my wallet, in which I had
my “Auschwitz trinity”: in profile, en
face, and with the prisoner number.
Historic photographs. I stuck them up
at the frame of the looking glass.
—These are my documents.
It struck like a bombshell. From that
moment I spent many extra hours
with the German team, telling my story, my memories. I concluded my tale
with the “Christmas boots.” This was
the real end of the Shoes of Death, the
wooden clogs, which had almost buried Oświęcim under their shuffle—the
town on the banks of the Soła river, the
town that bears a s-t-i-g-m-a in the history of mankind.
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THE SPEECH BY EVA UMLAUF
imagine something other than me
being who I was.
—On the other hand, I felt with sensibility that a miracle must be something very extraordinary, because I
felt, in my soul, pride and happiness
to be one.
Of course I realized the politically
explosive nature of these exclamations only much later. With the
benefit of hindsight I can now say
that surviving those times, and later
leading a seemingly normal life, really has been a miracle.
I do not have conscious memories of
my first years of life, which I spent
in the Novaky work camp, where I
was born in December 1942, and in
the Auschwitz concentration camp.
But I have deep unconscious bodyand-soul memories of them.
—My infantile body embodied, incorporated into itself, neglect, hunger, serious diseases and threats of
annihilation, inflicted on it.
—Human depreciation, mortal agony, and horror, forced upon my soul,
were unconsciously stored. Any
time they can be “recalled.”
For a child, its mother is the center
of the world, outside or within a
camp. Under this aspect my “child’s
world behind the electrified wire”
Your Excellencies,
Dear Mr. Director,
You discovered me as one of the
youngest individuals who were tattooed with their prisoner number
at Auschwitz, and you asked me to
deliver a speech here. I will do this,
though I’ll do it with a lot of mixed
feelings—you certainly will understand. Well, I accepted the challenge, and I am now asking you to
follow my brief personal reflections
with an open heart and a willingness toward understanding.
When I was a child, I believed ... ,
yes, I even was nearly certain ... to
be “a miracle,” although I did not
know what this meant in reality.
When my mother, my sister, and
I, after our return from Auschwitz
were walking through the streets
of our town, more often than not
we were welcomed with disbelief:
“What a miracle—you’re still alive!”
These encounters belong to my first
memories. They made a firm impression on me, because I often racked
my brains trying to find out what the
adults would say with this.
—On the one hand, it went without
saying for me that I was I, that is to
say, a miracle—anyway, I could not
was seemingly in order, since I had
my mother. But I did not have a
mother free from worries:
—her own mortal agony in the
camps,
—the burden weighing heavily
upon her during the transports,
—her worrying about me and, later
on, also about my sister, who today
is present here, too,
—her mourning for my father, her
husband, murdered during the
death march, and
—the permanent, everyday threats
in the camp, which she confronted
with cleverness.
All this did not remain hidden from
me, who deeply felt for her. It became my “legacy of feelings,” a legacy with which I am preoccupied still
today, and by which also my children, who long since have grown
up, are transgenerationally affected.
My mother, full of energy and never
losing heart, was the guarantor for
our survival.
—In the camps of Sered, Novaky,
and Auschwitz, she remained imperturbable, firm as a rock.
—In the camp hospital, she even
survived a serious jaundice, though
being pregnant.
—Although she herself was sick,
she took care that I, who was seriously ill at Auschwitz at the same
time, would recover.
—She took a boy of about four
years, who had been lost under chaotic circumstances, into our family.
With great difficulty she eventually
found his relatives.
It is written in the Old Testament:
“He who saves a single human soul,
saves the whole world.” Though
my mother herself was cruelly maltreated, she acted according to this
maxim, which sometimes appears
nearly unreal to me, but she, indeed,
grew up to a symbol of tremendous
human greatness. Two days before
we, on November 2, 1944, arrived at
Auschwitz, an order had been given
that as of then the newly arrived
should only be tattooed with camp
numbers, but no more gassed, since
there was no more sufficient time
for gassing. It was a deciding coincidence for our survival.
When I imagine that many thousand
Slovak men and women were deported to Auschwitz and that only a
few hundred returned, I understand
the neighbors well, when they said
that it was “a miracle” to see us alive
in the street.
We who returned, survived at the expense of being the living milestones
of a never ending way of suffering.
Maybe for that reason I use to react
with strong emotions, when I am being addressed as “former prisoner.”
Maybe these words are functionally
correct in the context of the organization of a concentration camp—I
was imprisoned, for sure. I find it,
however, horrible that by this usage of speech, human suffering and
inhumanity again are denied, surely
unconsciously and even by wellmeaning people.
I would wish for myself that that
which once happened will be understood and mentally processed to
prevent further
—personal suffering,
—breakdowns of civilization in society,
—inhumane systems of violence,
and
—transfer of the legacies of feelings
to the next generations and to society as a whole.
For me personally it is very important to make crystal clear that, in the
wake of the Nazi period,
—those who were threatened behind the electrified wire with violence and death, are carrying with
them the bitter legacies of feelings
from the experience of violence,
but that also
—those who seemingly were living in peace before the electrified
wire, with difficulty are carrying
the legacy of feelings inherited
from the burden of the misdeeds.
Both sides, the perpetrators as well
as the victims, will pass these legacies of feelings to their respective
offspring, until these legacies of
feelings have been courageously
and consciously worked through.
THE ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND BRONISŁAW KOMOROWSKI
Here in Auschwitz-Birkenau, as
perhaps nowhere else, we are painfully confronted with the nightmare of war and with the memory
of the nightmare of war—the war
that cost the lives of many millions
of people. Yet here in Auschwitz
the knowledge and memory of all
the horrific crimes are focused as if
by a lens. This place is one of the
symbols of the tragedy that the
world lived through, that Europe
lived through, and that the nations
that had to grapple with the great
challenge of the wave of hatred,
the wave of Nazism, lived through.
Auschwitz is one of the most painful symbols of the Holocaust, of
the extermination of the Jews, of
the extermination of the Roma and
Sinti, only because they were Jews,
Roma, and Sinti. In the memory of
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Poles, Auschwitz is not only a place
where Jews who were citizens of
Poland died because they were
Jews, but also a place where everyone died, where all of those died
who had the courage to stand up
to the legal system created during
the war under an occupying state.
Tens of thousands of Poles died
here, and Russians died as prisoners of war.
Thus Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, is a symbol of horrific crimes.
In such a place all of us would surely prefer to remain silent and prefer to pray quietly in our own way,
to reflect in silence on everything
that is important not only to understanding the crime, to its evaluation, but equally to reflection on
where the origins of such horrible
deeds may lie. Yet remaining silent
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here is impossible, which is why
I wish in a special way to thank
those eyewitnesses, the people who
survived, who endured the conditions of such terrible crimes, such
terrible danger, for the fact that
they have had the fortitude for decades on end to speak, to tell their
story, to bear witness to the truth,
although that memory is surely the
most painful thing to them. I therefore wish to express my heartfelt
gratitude to all who are witnesses
of those awful times, and who have
chosen to be here today together
with us, together with the President of Germany, together with the
President of Poland.
I also wish to thank the young people from Israel, from Germany,
from Poland, and from many other
countries who choose to meet here
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in Auschwitz. They want to learn
about those horrible times, but they
also want to seek a path to a better,
wiser, and more beautiful world. It
is imperative to speak here so that
we can remember and know, but
above all it is imperative to speak
here in order to spur deep reflection within ourselves about whether these same frightful mechanisms
of crime are pulsing today with
some sort of life concealed within
our contemporary world.
This is why Auschwitz plays an
exceptionally important role as a
museum. I am pleased that we are
approaching the moment when we
will be able to say that, in the financial sense and in the organizational
sense, this place will be permanently secure. It will function permanently not only as a great affront to
Fot. Paweł Sawicki
that
that
generation,
and also the
generation
born immediately after the war
or shortly
afterward
faced. President Wulff
and I both
belong
to
precisely
that
generation that
grew up in
the
shadow of the
war, in the
shadow of
crime, in the shadow of
that terrible hatred. It is my
wish that you never mull
over the dilemma that was
the lot of my generation
the conscience, not only as
the unhealed wound that
Władysław Bartoszewski
spoke about, but also as a
place for thinking togeth-
er about the future of the
world and about the future
of humanity. My wish for
young people is that they
never face the questions
as we worked through the
reading list at school, as we
talked things over in our
family homes, of whether
the world can still be a good
world, or whether there can
still be a place for poetry,
for music, or a place for
creating philosophy after
such a horrible crime. Today we know that the answer is yes, that the world
is making progress despite
that terrible experience. Yet
there must be a place, and it
is here in Auschwitz, where
remembering is a constant
imperative, in order to construct a future world built
on the truth, terribly painful though it may be, that
is essential to knowledge of
the world and of ourselves.
I would also like to stress
that I am here today with
the President of Germany.
This is perhaps the first
event of its kind when the
presidents of Poland and
Germany can be together
in such an extraordinary
place. I would like to say
that this is also a signal of
the fact that the world is
moving in the right direction, that despite that terrible experience, after many
many years, and after many
many years of work, we are
closer to the point where we
can eliminate from contemporary society, from contemporary states, and from
the contemporary world
all those horrible things
that weighed us down, that
poisoned at least several
generations in our part of
Europe with the venom of
hatred and with terrible
pain. Thank you.
THE ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY CHRISTIAN WULFF
On this very day, sixty-six years
ago, the suffering of the survivors
of Auschwitz finally came to an end.
The liberators had arrived.
The suffering of the victims of
Auschwitz in the preceding years
is inconceivable, inexpressible, indescribable. Nevertheless it must
be understood, told and described
over and over again. After a cynical selection process, hundreds of
thousands of human beings were
sent directly from the “ramp” to the
gas chambers to die a terrible death.
Children were separated from their
parents, families were torn apart.
Prisoners, irrespective of their origins, who were not murdered on the
spot had to do forced labor under
horrible conditions. They suffered
from hunger and were exposed to
the elements without any protection. They were subjected to inhumane punishments, harassment and
pseudomedical experiments, which
in fact were nothing but cruel tortures. They were completely at their
perpetrators’ mercy.
Auschwitz and other camps were
the scenes of the maltreatment and
murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma,
prisoners of war, resistance fighters,
homosexuals, disabled and other individuals.
Even before they arrived at Auschwitz, the Jews of Germany—and
later those from German occupied
countries—had increasingly been
deprived of their rights, had been
humiliated and degraded. This
process culminated in the systematic persecution of the Jews of Europe,
aiming at their destruction.
Auschwitz is situated on Polish soil.
A large number of its victims were
Polish nationals. Poland and her citizens suffered immeasurably under
German occupation and National
Socialist racial fanaticism.
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Unlike anything else, the name
“Auschwitz” stands for the crimes
perpetrated by Germans against
millions of human beings. They
fill us Germans with disgust and
shame. They lay upon us a historical responsibility that is independent of individual guilt: never again
we must allow such crimes to occur.
And we must keep alive the memories. Knowing about the horrors that
occurred and about things people
were capable of doing to others, are
reminding and obliging us, as well
as future generations, to preserve
the dignity of man under all circumstances and never again to persecute, degrade or kill other human
beings just because they adhere to a
different faith or are of other ethnic
origin, political conviction or sexual
orientation.
We Germans have been lucky insofar as the victims and their descendants have expressed their will
to reconciliation. We know that this
was not easy for them. Therefore we
appreciate very much that Jewish
life once again is flourishing in Germany, that we have a unique relationship with Israel, and that we are
linked in deep friendship with our
Polish and other neighbours. This
has been an immense gift for us.
It is impossible to imagine the horrors in their entirety. Not before
those who suffered are given a
name, a face, a home, can we try to
understand their fate and really feel
what they went through. That is the
reason why it is so important that
the survivors, in spite of their old
age, tell students about their lives,
that they tell them what it meant “to
stand at the ramp at the age of seventeen.”
I am profoundly grateful to see survivors among us here today, some
of whom even accompanied me
from Germany. As long as you survivors are bearing witness, there can
be no forgetting, and if we will preserve and pass on your testimony,
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there will be no forgetting either.
Everybody who is listening to your
stories will be touched for ever. You
are both the victims of terror and the
bridge toward a better future. For
me as the President of the Federal
Republic of Germany it is very important to be together with you here
in Auschwitz.
The more the number of those
who still can testify personally is
decreasing, the more the written,
photographic and filmed evidence
is receiving importance, the more
the preservation of the places of
memory, especially of Auschwitz,
becomes important. Let all of us do
everything within our power to contribute to this aim.
Helpful are also memory plaques on
houses, reminding of their former
occupants, who were deprived of
their rights, expelled, and murdered. Or those small brass memory
plaques, “stumbling blocks,” set in
the pavement before the houses the
victims had been living in before expulsion.
Today’s young people must know
the truth about the National Socialist terror regime. Then they will
raise their voices and resolutely
contradict those who are denying
or falsifying the facts. They will step
up against those who do not want
to understand, who are disparaging
the dead and mocking the survivors.
For this reason I invited young people to accompany me to Israel and
Yad Vashem last November. For
that reason President Komorowski
and I went together to the International Youth Meeting Center today
to discuss with young people about
courage to stand up for one’s beliefs,
about a civilization in which one
doesn’t look away, in which one intervenes whenever necessary.
We must not forget that, back then,
there were people from all nations
and from all strata of society who
did not look away, but who helped
as much as they could, often risking their own lives. Many of those
“Righteous among the Nations” are
commemorated in Yad Vashem.
Remembrance,
commemoration
and mourning should not paralyse
life, should not bar the way to the
future; on the contrary, they should
make it possible. Together we bear
responsibility to ensure that such a
break in civilization never will happen again—not in Europe, neither
anywhere on the Globe. For this
reason, for the victims’ and for our
future’s sake, we must keep the
memories alive.
President Komorowski,
Excellencies,
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THE ADDRESS BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU MUSEUM
DR. PIOTR M.A. CYWIŃSKI
We are meeting for the sixty-sixth time in winter.
That is more often than the majority of those present celebrated their birthday
anniversaries.
I was born thirty years
after the gas chambers of the Holocaust were put into operation.
It is difficult for me to imagine
the second,
the third ...
the fifth ...
anniversary.
How different the atmosphere must have been at that time!
When the reverberations of Death could still be felt,
when they were loud and omnipresent at this place.
At a time when pain slowly began to change into memory.
There are survivors among us, those who lived through this hell.
From there they brought with them, in their luggage,
fear from the perpetrator,
frequently also from the fellow prisoner,
maybe also anxiety about themselves.
Today their words and testimonies belong to the great voice of history.
There are young people among us.
It will take many years until their word will influence the reality of our world.
Today, however, we can ask ourselves:
Are we giving them a chance to understand?
Among all these words, big ones and small ones,
ceremonious and everyday words, strange and understandable words,
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5
6
7
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I am thanking the survivors who are present. Once again.
I am thanking the Presidents.
I am thanking everybody who came here.
I do not do this in my own name alone.
Though I do not have the least right
to thank in the name of somebody else.
Especially in the name of someone who has been silent for more than sixty-six
years.
We are meeting exactly on this day and this very place ...
This Day of Liberation has become a Day of Remembrance for mankind,
and this place—as pars pro toto—has become a symbol known worldwide.
That means a great commitment for all of us.
There are men and women among us who bear a special responsibility:
Politicians, leaders, decision makers.
Their word puts things in order.
They have, however, also the power to destroy this order.
Nowhere else than here, at this place, they clearly see
the immense and rarely bearable degree of responsibility that rests on their
shoulders.
Here great ideas do not matter, neither nailing one’s colors to the mast, nor
power, nor honor.
Here real human beings do matter. Men and women. Everybody.
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They are the strongest commitment for our memory.
We look for their voices in the echoes of our epilogues.
In the language of our memory.
In our conscience.
As usually, I am thanking, and I am asking.
There are men and women among us who were born just after the war,
frequently with an inquiring look,
in the field of tension between angst and disbelieving.
Nowhere else than here, at this place,
we feel a panic desire to flee from verbalization.
From naming. And so also from understanding.
2
Did our ears hear the voices of those who are not among us,
who never have been among us?
The voices of those who could not experience a single anniversary of the liberation.
The voices of those whose steps at Auschwitz were their last steps.
Let us especially remember
that the voices of the majority of the victims of Auschwitz died with their last cry,
before any liberation whatsoever.
Now we are here and look at Auschwitz
from the perspective of the twenty-first century.
At the core of Europe’s worst experience.
At a point of no return, after which nothing was as it has been.
At the apogee. At the bottom. At today’s most important point of reference.
At our European conscience.
1
I would like to remind us of words
that were never said on the occasion of our anniversaries.
10
Exactly here, at this very place,
let me exclaim:
We need help with the preservation of the authenticity of Auschwitz!
We need help more than ever before.
There are no more remains of Treblinka, Kulmhof,
Sobibór, and Bełżec.
Let us not allow that the biggest of these death camps
and the only one that is still recognizable
will fall into decay due to the ravages of the time
and our indifference.
Let us today side with the remembrance.
With the conscience.
So that future generations, those of our children and their children,
can come and stand here and—may the Almighty grant it—understand things
better.
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International Youth Meeting Center
WHAT REMAINS IN MEMORY
D
Photo: IYMC
Photo: IYMC
of this we will remember
throughout the next century what had happened in
Auschwitz,” said the president of Germany, Christian
Wulff to the audience of
Polish and German former
prisoners. Among them
were: Kazimierz Albin, Wilhelm Brasse, Hermann Höllenreiner, August Kowal
czyk, Oljean Ingster, David
Lewin, Józef Paczyński, Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka, Kazimierz Smoleń, Tadeusz
Smreczyński, Justin Sonder,
and Tadeusz Sobolewicz.
“For me, this day is special
because I have the opportunity to meet people who feel
compelled to tell the future
generations about this,”
stressed the German President.
“I belong to the Polish
generation that lived and
matured in the shadow of
the War as well as in the
shadow of their own families’ experiences. In fact, my
entire childhood in our family home consisted of recollections about the War—in
equal measure the memories of the struggle: the
partisan actions, the underground, the Warsaw Uprising, as well as recollections
of the terrible crimes that,
of course, affected Polish
families to an extraordinarily high degree. This sense
of pain lasted for generations—I think that in my
family’s case for three generations,” recalled President
Bronisław
Komorowski.
“I remember once walking
with my father, holding his
hand and I was looking at
him as if he were a picture,
since I was absolutely certain that he was the bravest
soldier that had avenged the
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death of his brother several
times. And I asked the question, which was typical of
my generation, with a deep
conviction already knowing
what the answer would be. I
asked: ‘Dad, and how many
Germans did you kill?’ I
expected that this would
be some great number, because he had been both in
the Polish underground
and partisan groups of the
Vilnius region in a fight that
had its end on front line
near Dresden. I remember
the feeling when my father
stood up. Holding me by
my hand, he looked at me
and said, ‘You know, I hope
none.’ This was the moment
when I had to reevaluate
my attitude toward the War
and all that war has brought
to my generation.”
Taking part in the discussion were students from
schools
in
Oświęcim,
Bieruń, and Bielsko-Biała, as
well as German high school
students from Kassel and
Giessen, and students from
the Volkswagen School in
Wolfsburg.
Addressing them, President
Komorowski stated: “That
is why I am glad that the
International Youth Meeting Center exists here, in
Oświęcim. I am also of the
post-War generation, just
as President Wulff, but you
are even more post-war and
you do not even carry such
memories, like mine, some
inherited from parents, but
this does not exempt you
from the duty to possess
this knowledge. A knowledge that of course can
easily be combined with a
quite optimistic vision of
the world—where these terrible experiences are simultaneously a commitment to
a better and more enjoyable
life. Sometime after the War,
my generation was asked: If
after the experiences of the
Second World War, after the
experience of genocide, after the experience of Auschwitz, was it even possible
to create philosophy, write
poetry, or to paint cheerful images? I think that we
also asked ourselves this
question. I hope that my
children’s generation will
not have such dilemmas.
They know that the world
is sometimes malicious and
cruel, but you need to build
a world that is beautiful, intelligent, and good.”
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Words, important for the
IYMC, were uttered by
Zofia Posmysz, writer, author of, among others, The
Passenger. “What does this
Center mean to me? This is
a place where—as nowhere
else—I do not feel that my
life is empty, that I have
nothing to say, that I have
nothing to do. Here, I am
convinced that I have something else to do, something
useful. I am among the people who are sensitive, close,
and sincere. My personal
meetings with the youth
offer me hope. Hope that
these young people who
have come here voluntarily,
after coming into contact
with the reality ... this creation, which was Auschwitz,
will be immune to the various murderous ideologies,
which created this kind of
monster,” she said.
stand, by getting to know
us. The IYMC is not only a
Polish-German place, it is
a world of young people
speaking many languages,
and most importantly, those
who are hosted here need
us, and we need them. And
this is why, being 90 years
old, I get into a train from
Warsaw to Oświęcim and
I come to the IYMC, my
House that was painted
with compassion.”
An important element of
the debates were the reflections put forward by young
people. “I think that having
grown up in the shadow of
Auschwitz, some part of it
lives within me and is with
me everywhere, wherever I
go. Every time I hear some
stupid antisemitic remark, a
red light goes on in my mind
and I cannot get over it. Of
course, I am well aware of
Speaking about the Center
was also August Kowal
czyk, who said, “I live along
with this town of Oświęcim
and I am linked to this soil
and to these stones. ‘Im
Lager Auschwitz war ich
zwar.’ I come here after 66
years, as I did previously
after 65, 64, 63 ... to meet ...
myself, and that—number
6804. I have started to like it.
I like it not because, after all,
this is my Auschwitz, but
here in this city on the Soła
River is a Center, my Center
and for those like me—the
International Youth Meeting Center. For me—my
house, painted with compassion. A magical place
which changes our desires
in a friendly din that was
once hostile; now young
people speaking German
come here. They listen to us
and feel that it is important
for us, very important. And
then it turns out that for
them, it is equally important. They want to under-
what came out of such remarks,” said 19-year-old Iga
Bunalska, a participant in
many educational projects
organized by the IYMC.
Photo: IYMC
The discussion, which was
moderated by the President
of the Board of the Foundation for the IYMC, Dr. Ali
cja Bartuś, and Christoph
Heubner, the Vice-President
of the International Auschwitz Committee and one of
the co-creators of the Center, was the first point in the
commemoration of the 66th
anniversary of the liberation
of the former Nazi German
Concentration and Extermination Camp. Before the debate, the two Presidents met
with Polish and German
former Auschwitz prisoners
in the IYMC library.
“Thank you that you have
extended your hand in our
direction. We would also
like to thank you for your
bearing witness, because
Photo: IYMC
Photo: IYMC
uring the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the International Youth Meeting Center played host
to the Presidents of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, and of Germany, Christian Wulff. The two men participated in a debate with former inmates of Auschwitz as well as Polish and German youth, entitled What
remains in the memory... The history of Europe, the hope of Europe.
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“Here, I am performing my
alternative to military service and would like to stress
how important this work is
for me. These meetings are
of enormous importance
to me, in no other place in
the world would it be possible to experience what
I experience here,” said
an IYMC volunteer, Fredi
Hahn, from Austria. “After
meeting a large number of
visitors who come here I
noticed, nevertheless, most
had come from Germany
even though more than 60
years have passed, there is
still great interest and what
happened, should never be
forgotten. I have had many
amazing experiences here.”
Joanna Klęczar
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International Youth Meeting Center
RETURN OF THE PASSENGER
A MEETING WITH ZOFIA POSMYSZ
T
broadcast by Polish Radio
and later the film by Andrzej Munk won acclaim at
Cannes, it can be said that
The Passenger has truly returned. The meeting with
the author was an attempt
to take a fresh look at this
work within a different historical reality.
jk
Photo: IYMC
earful eyes and a standing ovation—this is how Zofia Posmysz was honored by the Oświęcim audience
that completely filled the Szymański Hall at the IYMC. The meeting with the writer and former prisoner
of Auschwitz, entitled the Return of The Passenger, was held on the 23rd of January. Its organizers were the
Judaica Foundation—Center for Jewish Culture in Cracow.
Photo: IYMC
ZOFIA POSMYSZ
The meeting took the form
of conversation, in which
Leszek Szuster as well as
wonderful (as usual) Zofia Posmysz did not only
return to memories of the
writer, but also shed light
on the creation of the radio
drama, novel, and film The
Passenger as well as the opera by Mieczysław Weinberg that bears the same
title. The conversation was
accompanied by a presentation of excerpts of the
works.
The premiere of The Passenger—the opera with
the libretto by Alexander
Medvedev based on the
novel by Zofia Posmysz
during the opera festival in
Bregenz, and then a presentation at the Grand TheatreNational Opera in Warsaw,
which with certainty was
one of the major musical
events of 2010. More than
half a century after the drama by Zofia Posmysz was
She is a novelist and
screenwriter. In 1942, she
was imprisoned in the German Concentration Camp
Auschwitz and later sent to
Ravensbrück. In 1945, she
made her literary debut
with her memoirs, Znam
katów z Belsen [I Know the
Executioners from Belsen].
Among others, she worked
at writing for Głos Ludu
[Voice of the People] and
at Polish Radio. The publicity resulted in a radio
play entitled, The Passenger
from Cabin Number 45 that
formed the basis for An-
drzej Munk’s film The Passenger, and later, the book
bearing the same title that
was published in 1962. The
film’s director was killed
in 1961 before the completion of the film, so the
movie had to be finished
by his colleagues and was
released two years later.
Zofia Posmysz is the author of several novels, including Wakacje nad Adriatykiem [Holidays on the
Adriatic], short stories, and
film scripts.
For many years now she
has been closely associ-
ated with the IYMC—it is
here that several times a
year she meets with groups
of young people. In 2008,
she was a guest at a meeting in the series European
Conversations
at
the
IYMC. The talk during the
evening, entitled Literature and Memory revolved
around the story of Christ in
Auschwitz, whose publication in Polish and German
is planned by the IYMC
this year in the guise of
Tadeusz Palone-Lisowski,
the main character of the
work.
DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE MEMORY
AND HERITAGE OF AUSCHWITZ
O
The goal of the meeting
was to agree on the principles of cooperation within
the program The Culture of
Remembrance—The Identity
of Małopolska, which was
initiated by the governor
of Małopolska, Stanisław
Kracik. As the governor
stressed, the special importance of this project is to
present the plans by Nazi
Germany to exterminate
the Jewish people, as well
as the mass murder of the
Polish state’s leadership
class; this also includes the
presentation of knowledge
about the centuries of coexistence between Jews and
Poles, together with the
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promotion of human rights
in the contemporary world.
The training of teachers,
projects for students of
Małopolska and opportunities to try to change the curriculum in middle and high
schools were also the topics
discussed. All the participants agreed on the need
for a collaborative effort. In
April, as part of the WKOPWiM Cracow Symposium,
entitled Teaching history at
the historical sites, there will
be a presentation about the
work of Oświęcim based
educational institutions.
The guests of honor of the
symposium were Fr. Cardinal Franciszek Macharski
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as well as former prisoners of Auschwitz, who met
the same day at a solemn
breakfast at IYMC. During
this meeting, they proposed
their support for the 25th
anniversary celebration of
the founding of the IYMC
that will take place in 2011.
For this purpose, an Honorary Committee was created
that includes: Zofia Posmysz, August Kowalczyk,
Wilhelm Brasse, Kazimierz
Smoleń, Józef Paczyński,
Tadeusz Smreczyński, Tadeusz Sobolewicz, as well
as Kazimierz Albin.
IYMC
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Photo: IYMC
n January 28, at the International Youth Meeting Center a symposium was held, entitled The Culture of
Remembrance—the Heritage of Auschwitz, which was prepared in cooperation with the Institute of Civil
Society Pro Publico Bono. It was attended by representatives of the Oświęcim institutions involved in historical education: the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer, Jewish Center, International Center for Education about
Auschwitz and the Holocaust, the State Higher Vocational School, the Association of Roma in Poland, and the
IYMC.
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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
O
n the site of the former Nazi German Concentration and Extermination
Camp of Auschwitz, work continues on the restoration of two former
prisoner blocks, numbered 2 and 3. All of these activities have one goal,
guided by the principle of minimum intervention, to remove harmful microbes as
well as to strengthen the structure of the building, which ultimately will restore the
original appearance of the authentic building.
Photo: Adam Pelc
Currently, almost all the
work is completed in removing the wooden floors and
parts of the wooden ceiling.
Also dismantled were the
plaster coated soffit boards,
nailed to the underside of
the beams. Preliminary conservation work, which involved repairing cracks and
fractures, took place on the
dismantled floorboards as
well as the disinfection and
preservation of the walls
and cleaning of the ceramic
elements.
After the initial securing of
the door woodwork, it was
transported to the conservation workshop where
further preservation work
was carried out. Work also
continues on excavating the
filled in basements in the
two blocks, which is being
done together with the shoring up of the foundations.
In Block 2, this work was
completed from the ground
floor of the stairwell to the
basement level. The basement’s ceiling beams and
joists have been reinforced.
Work related to the conservation of metal elements
such as staircase railings,
components of the water
system, and items made of
mineral mortars (such as,
sewer pipes) are still ongoing. An important component of the conservation
work that is being carried
out is the continuing photographic and graphic documentation of the buildings’
conservation status.
The project’s implementation is possible through
EU co-financing from the
European Regional Development Fund under the
Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment
for the years 2007- 2013.
Monika Bernacka
Conservation work also
continues on wooden barracks on the site of the
former Auschwitz II-Birk-
Photo: Dział Konserwacji
TO SAVE FROM DESTRUCTION
enau Concentration and Extermination Camp.
The work on barracks B-166
foundation has come to a
finish, as have the efforts
of protecting fragments of
the concrete floor against
the winter on the interior of
the building. However, in
the conservation workshop
the process of cleaning elements of the walls, roof, as
well as the structural elements continues, and this
includes the replacement of
missing and damaged sections of the original carpentry work.
In the last quarter of 2010,
barracks B-210 has had its
lightning protection, skylights, and metal roofing
elements as well as tarpaper
removed. The entire structure of the barracks was
dismantled and transported
to the workshop, where it
is being put through the
appropriate conservation
work. Also carried out was
archaeological research that
included the analysis of
the ground and its condition near the building. The
non-original cement was
dismantled and work on
the removal of the replaced
foundation started.
The maintenance project of
the five wooden barracks
at the former Auschwitz
II-Birkenau Concentration
Camp is co-financed by the
European Union through
the European Regional Development Fund under the
Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment
2007-2013.
Iga Bunalska
LET US BUILD MEMORY. AN EXHIBIT OF DONATIONS
GIVEN TO THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL SITE
I
n block 12 of Auschwitz I, the Let Us Build Memory exhibit has been organized to show the personal mementos, documents, and art work related to the history of Auschwitz, the Nazi German Concentration and
Extermination Camp, that have been donated to the Museum by former prisoners and their families. All of
these donated items have been handed over to the Museum in the last three years.
Among the items presented
are the striped uniforms
worn by the prisoners,
patches bearing their camp
numbers, signet rings created in the camp, camp letters,
a sign from a train in which
the Jews were deported
from Westerbork Concentration Camp in Nazi-occupied Holland, and even
rubber toys that were cut
out of rubber, made by an
unknown prisoner for the
son of prisoner Genowefa
Marczewska.
According to the Director
of the Museum, Dr. Piotr
M.A. Cywiński, this exhibit
is very emotional, because
many of the donated items
are personal mementoes,
that families have cherished
for decades. In his opinion,
it is extremely important
that what has been found
can be preserved at the Memorial. “This way, the items
are then placed in their
proper context, they work
together with other objects,
and above all let us discover and get to know further details, the elements of
this tragic story. Secondly,
the keepsakes are very safe
here, placed under proper
care, conservation, and
looked after by the specialists in the collections department. They will be kept here
for generations,” said Director Cywiński.
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“Each of these authentic
artifacts associated with
Auschwitz is another story
that constitutes testimony
of those tragic times. We
are grateful for the support
we have received so far
and we urge you to submit
such items to our institution. They serve in spreading knowledge about the
history of Auschwitz and
commemorate those people
whose fate met with one of
the most tragic places in history,” the preface to the exhibition says.
In one of the exhibit-cases
you can see handmade cards
given to the Museum by
Helena Datoń-Szpak. Prisoners made these greeting
cards as a token of gratitude
for her assistance. “During
the war, while working as a
young girl in the SS canteen
she assisted prisoners by
smuggling—this included
illegal correspondence to
the prisoners families. For
her, they prepared handwritten and painted greeting cards to celebrate name
days, birthdays, or holidays.
One of the histories associated with these cards is
very touching, because it is
evidence of the feelings that
were shared by Helena and
one of the prisoners. On one
of the cards is, in fact, a personal poem written to Mrs.
Datoń-Szpak,” said Elżbieta
Brzózka, Head of the Collections Department.
The exhibition Let Us Build
Memory will be open until
February 24. Most artifacts
can also be seen in a special
online exhibition on the Mups
seum website.
DONATE THE DOCUMENTS OR OTHER HISTORICAL ITEMS
IN YOUR POSSESSION TO THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL SITE
Memory is not something that is acquired once and remains forever. The moment that the
last eyewitnesses and survivors pass away, we have to work together to cultivate what remains: the testimonies of those former prisoners and the authentic artifacts connected with
the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Each item has its own enormous meaning and should
find its place in the collection of the Memorial Site. Here, it will be preserved, studied, and
displayed. Their place is here.
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Jewish Center
JEWISH MOTIFS—2010
RETROSPECTIVE
T
Divorce Jewish Style,
directed by John Edginton
(Great
Britain
2009,
48
minutes).
Under Jewish Law, it is the
husband who has the right
to decide whether he will
grant his wife a divorce
(the “Get”). If he refuses
to do this, the wife could
be condemned to years of
living within a dead marriage. She cannot remarry
and any child she bears
from a new relationship
is considered illegitimate.
In this controversial documentary, the “chained
wives” from the Orthodox Jewish community in
Israel and the UK discuss
their plight—this includes
a woman who has been refused a “Get” by her husband for 47 years.
The
Peretzniks,
directed
by
Sławomir
Grünberg
(Poland/
USA 2009, 93 minutes).
The film presents the story
about the students of I.
L. Peretz Jewish School,
which existed in Łódź until 1969. After its closing,
the majority of its graduates were forced to leave
Poland as a result of the
antisemitic campaign of
March 1968. The film tells
the story of the unique
relationship
between
Peretzniks, which they
cultivated in the post-War
Łódź, and the fact that
it became even stronger
due to the fact that history
tried to destroy it. The film
is based on the brainchild
of Gołda Tencer.
Dana,
directed
by
Amir
Fishman
(Israel 2009, 15 minutes).
This film represents the
turning point in the relationship between a single
young mother and her
adolescent daughter when
a big secret is discovered.
Worried and afraid her
daughter is repeating her
own mistakes, the mother
does not want to fail as a
parent, while her daughter wants to prove that she
is independent.
Miracle Lady, directed
by Moran Somer and
Michal
Abulafia
Winner of the Warsaw
Bronze Phoenix Award 2010
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Fortuna, a 75-year-old
woman, sits, wearing her
wedding gown and waits
for her late husband to
return back home. Meanwhile,
her
next-door
neighbor’s elderly servant—Marcela-Merkada—
wishes for her miserable
life to end. Their two stories intersect and change
each of these women’s
fates.
who organized and perpetrated the mass murder
of the Jews, Gypsies, and
Soviet prisoners? Where
did they come from? What
motivated them to do this?
March 21, 5:00 pm
Einsatzgruppen—the
death brigades, part 2, directed by Michaël Prazan
(France 2009, 90 minutes).
Winner of the Warsaw Silver
Phoenix Award 2010
March 14, 5:00 pm
Leaving the Fold, directed
by Eric R. Scott (Canada
2008, 52 minutes). Winner of the Warsaw Bronze
Phoenix
Award
2010
Leaving the Fold is a film
about young individuals
who were born and raised
within the ultra-Orthodox
Jewish world, who no
longer wish to remain
locked inside this realm.
The stories of conflict, coercion, and struggle come
from the Hasidic enclaves
of Montreal, Brooklyn,
and Jerusalem.
Deadly
Honour,
directed by Lipika Pelham (Israel/Great Britian 2009, 58 minutes).
Deadly Honour documents multiple murders
of young women in the
Israeli city of Ramla. The
narrator is a 15-year-old
girl, Salma, who tell the
story—based on true
events—of a girl who is a
survivor of an honor killing. The film presents the
fear and trauma of those
who survived. Also, the
film looks into the social
fabric of the mixed JewishArab city, where women
have better integrated into
mainstream Israeli society
than men.
Gefilte Fish, directed
by Shelly Kling (Israel 2008, 10 minutes).
Gali’s family has a longstanging tradition where
every woman who is engaged to be married must
prepare Gefilte Fish for the
wedding party, as a guarantee of the marriage’s
success. Gali’s mother and
grandmother have given
her a live carp that has to
be cooked. She is torn between the compassion she
feels toward the fish and
the need to abide to her
family’s tradition.
Einsatzgruppen:
the
death brigades, part 2, directed by Michaël Prazan
(France 2009, 90 minutes).
Winner of the Warsaw Silver Phoenix Award 2010
In June 1941, the German
army invades the Soviet
Union. Behind it are the
Einsatzgruppen, in other
words: death brigades,
who have been sent to fulfill the duty of exterminating Jews and the enemies
of the Reich. Within a few
months, the genocide work
is accomplished. In December of 1941, the Baltic
countries are declared “Judenfrei”—free of Jews…
Who were the individuals
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tures. The story is based
around their earliest memories and those events.
Outcasts. Jewish Partisans of Belarus, directed
by Alexander Stupnikov
(Belarus 2009, 53 minutes).
Warsaw
Phoenix—The
Special Beit Award 2010
Outcasts is the first film
about Jewish partisan
units in Belarus. Just in
the Minsk area, there were
seven Jewish fighting
units. The film shows the
conditions in which the
Jewish partisan organizations formed as well as
their relationship with Belarusians.
Guided Tour, directed by
Benjamin
Freidenberg
Winner of the Warsaw Silver Phoenix Award 2010
Thirty-one-year-old Eitan
lives alone in Jerusalem and
works at nights painting
lines on the city’s streets.
The down-to-earth and monotonic work is interwoven
with reminiscences from
the protagonist’s everyday
life.
Polski Hotel, director
Kama Veymont (Poland 2009, 49 minutes).
This film uncovers the
I Seek You at Dawn, directed by Eliav Berman
Thirty-eight-year-old Eliav
Berman studied and received a master’s degree
in Clinical Rehabilitation
Psychology at Bar Ilan
University. After working
for a few years in the field
of rehabilitation research,
he began to take interest in
photography and film. He
is now finishing his master’s degree in film at the
Tel Aviv University.
March 28, 5:00 pm
8 Stories that didn’t
Change the World, directed by Ivo Krankowski
(Poland 2010, 35 minutes).
Viewer’s Choice Award
2010 and the Warsaw
Phoenix
2010—Special Prize of the Jewish
Community in Warsaw
The film highlights eight
individuals—Polish Jews
born between 1914 and
1933. It brings us into the
realm of their youth, childhood dreams, and adven-
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Photo: Festival Jewish Motifs
March 7, 5:00 pm
Photo: Festival Jewish Motifs
he Oświęcim Jewish Center in association with the Jewish Motifs Association invite you to a viewing of films on the
subject of Jewish themes. Every Monday, from March 7 to 28, the Center will be screening films, organized thanks
to the generosity of the International Film Festival Jewish Motifs conducted by the Jewish Motifs Association. The
movies have subtitles in English and Polish. We cordially invite everyone.
background of the mysterious and virtually unknown story from the
time of the Holocaust that
took place in Warsaw during the summer of 1943,
and which—because of
its moral ambiguity—was
called “the Polski Hotel
scandal.”
The monthly magazine Oś is a
media sponsor of this event.
Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation
NOTHING CAN BE A SUBSTITUTE
FOR A REAL MEETING
“I
Photo: Jakob Weber
am very concerned with the matter in which we will remember the Holocaust in 10, 20, or 30 years,”
said Tal Goshen, a guide at the House of the Ghetto Heroes, a Holocaust museum in Israel, who took
part in the international meeting, entitled Memory and Commemoration in the Era of Web 2.0. “The challenge of our generation is shaping the memory of the Holocaust. Soon there will be no one who will be able to
tell us what had happened at that time,” she added.
Anat Shavit
Kołodziej in Harmęże. Everyone also took part in the
commemoration of the 66th
anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz.
“It is most important for
us that there are meetings
between young people and
survivors, who are after all,
witnesses of that history,”
said Wolfgang Gerstner,
director of the Maximilian
Kolbe Werk. “We organized
a similar seminar a year
ago and all the participants
on this topic is a bit strange
with someone who is not
Jewish, despite the fact that
the Holocaust meant suffering for all.” Isabel Ruegenberg from Germany’s
Frankfurt learned about
the project from her uncle.
Isaiah was the first person
that she met, and who eats
kosher food. “Meetings
with different cultures are
something very interesting.
However, a visit to Auschwitz is something more
than a shock and sadness,”
she said.
According to one of the organizers of the project, Julia
Maria Koszewska, meeting
people from different cultures can also bring about
some difficulties: “The seminar is conducted in four
languages: Polish, German,
Russian, and English. The
Yes, I am Polish. But today I feel more like a world
citizen brought up within the Slavic culture. My family history is also not very complicated: one set of
grandparents were deported from Belarus to Lower
Silesia—hence my upbringing, which I would refer to
as “eastern.” What do I do? I graduated, two degrees,
and currently I travel and get to know new people different nationalities, religions, places of birth, and
residence. My interests are centered around the wider
view of the East as well as Jewish culture—for these
two reasons I came to Oświęcim for a seminar on
Memory and Commemoration in the Era of Web 2.0.
For me, Oświęcim is a town in Małopolska, 60 km
away from Cracow, that has 40 thousand inhabitants.
It might seem that there is nothing special about it,
but I decided to take five days off and come to visit
it. I came to meet with youth from different countries
and to talk to them about history. The most important
thing for me was to learn experience from their first
visit to Poland, to Oświęcim, and the Auschwitz Memorial Site.
Katarzyna Gasińska
Photo: Maximilian Kolbe Werk
This project was coordinated by the German organization Maximilian Kolbe
Werk in Oświęcim and
lasted from January 23 to 27.
This meeting was attended
by 25 young participants,
aged from 18 to 28, from
eight different countries, as
well as 10 Holocaust survivors. The program included
a visit to the Auschwitz
Memorial Site, a meeting
with survivors, and visiting
the exhibition by Marian
were very impressed. So
this year a second edition of
the project is taking place,
but this time it is longer.
The first part takes place in
Oświęcim, and in March the
participants will go to Buchenwald,” he added. While
talking about what caused
his organization to undertake such a task, I noticed
his eyes gleaming: “We
have two challenges. First,
we must use this moment,
while the witnesses are still
with us. A person meeting a
person gives you more than
watching a film or reading a
book. Secondly, we want to
bring young people closer
to this very important subject. That is why we have
chosen this and not some
other motto,” he said.
Isaiah Urken learned about
the seminar from a friend
belonging to the Jewish
Community in Vilnius, who
insisted on taking part in the
event. “ It is very interesting
and somewhat connected
with my national identity,”
she said. “Previously I did
not think that Germany was
interested in the Holocaust
and that they are only doing so much for the sake of
remembrance. A discussion
Participants of the project
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Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation
simplest solution would
be to use English, but because we want to convey
the message of reconciliation, we decided to emphasize the linguistic diversity.
Our main goal is to use a
meeting with the past for
the present and future. We
want to create a communi-
cative memory—a memory
that comes out of a meeting with others and from
the place where it occurred.
This is why we have chosen
Auschwitz-Birkenau. For
most of the young participants it was the first visit to
the Memorial Site.”
In today’s world, memory
seems to be shorter and
more ephemeral. The world
is changing at a dizzying
pace and what happened
two years ago is often today
only the distant past. You
could say that within the
family, memory is passed
on by the generation of our
grandparents. That, which
happened in the past is usually blurred in our memory.
Will we be able to save the
memory of the Holocaust,
when there will no longer
be grandparents who had
seen the Holocaust with
their own eyes? “The key
here is the meeting,” said
Tal. “We have to constantly
meet and talk. Today, we
can be helped by technology, because memory can
also be safeguarded in the
virtual world. However,
nothing can be a substitute
for real meetings,” she adds
after a moment.
Anat Shavit
i
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN?
Jakob Weber: Macedonia is located quite
far from Oświęcim. What was your trip
like?
Mustafa Yakupov: The problem of traveling
from Macedonia lies in the fact that there
are not any good airline connections. Our
capital, Skopje, has no connections with
major European cities; therefore, it was
quite a journey for me. From my home in
Kratovo, in the northeast of the country, I
went by taxi to the airport in Skopje. I flew
to Zagreb, then to Munich, and Cracow.
Whole affair took about 10 hours.
Tell us something about Macedonia. I think
few people, including me, know very much
about your country.
Macedonia is a small country in the southeast Balkans. It is a part of the former Yugoslavia, which gained independence in
1991. About 2 million people live there. It
is a multicultural country because very different groups live next door to one another: Macedonians, Albanians, Roma, Serbs,
Turks, Bosnians, and people from Romania
as well as Hungary. There are many minorities for such as a small country.
The trip to Oświęcim had to be very important to you if you decided on such a long
and stressful journey.
It was indeed very important. I am here for
personal reasons. My grandfather told me
stories about how the German Nazis occupied our city. He remembered that as a
child he had to stand against a wall with
other Roma, whom the Germans wanted
to shoot. At almost the last second a doctor saved him, a German woman who had
a Macedonian husband. Germany claimed
that the Roma were fighting the Germans,
that they were active partisans. The doctor said that these were not partisans, but
very poor people. My grandfather had to
leave Kratovo and live high in the mountains. Anyway, my great-grandfather was
arrested and detained in a slave labor camp
in Bulgaria. Fortunately, he managed to escape later.
What images did you associate with Auschwitz before coming here?
The main associations were connected with
death and fire. Much violence. This was a
very violent image with scenes of death,
fire... Like in Hell.
Now, after having visited the camp, has
anything changed?
It was indeed a place full of violence, but I
was surprised to what level the process of
killing was mechanized killing, that mur-
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der was everyday work, it was all so systematic: gas chambers, crematoria, burning
bodies, as well as shootings at the Wall of
Death. Previously, I thought people had
been killed in Auschwitz “normally,” but
a system was created here for inflicting
suffering. I also remember a quote from
the exhibition at the Museum. Hitler said
that the conscience is a Jewish invention.
Thus, these people had no conscience.
These words made me wonder about what
it means to be human today. We are all human beings, even those who kill. But this
raises the question of what it means to be
human. I am here and I am a Macedonian,
but I am also a Gypsy, a citizen of my country. I have the same rights as others. Many
people do not understand this. They say,
“You’re a Gypsy.” My answer is, “What is
the difference between me, as a Gypsy, and
you, as a Macedonian?” We have the same
passport. There is no difference.
I know that you are involved in working
with young people. What will you tell
them after you return home?
First, I will pass on to them the stories of
the witnesses whom I met, but then I’ll try
to teach them to pass on positive Roma values to society, to stop discrimination. We
must make people aware that Roma are not
some sort of “hoodlums,” that we are the
same as other people. Such is the task of the
Regional Association of Roma Youth Education. We want young people to actively
participate, using creative methods, and
promote their values in society, we want to
mobilize them and give them energy.
Are you afraid that what happened in
Auschwitz could happen again? Are Roma
in Macedonia being discriminated against?
I am here both because of the Roma’s history, and also because of the fact that discrimination against Roma did not end after
the Second World War. After the War, Bulgaria introduced a law against using the
Roma language, Slovakia sterilized Romani women, in Hungary many Roma were
killed and their houses were burned. Roma
children had to go to special schools where
they could not properly get educated. The
discrimination continues. Luckily, today
there are a number of activists who are
fighting to improve the life of the Roma,
they are fighting for their inclusion in society, and fighting for their full citizenship.
And how does the situation look in Macedonia? Do you have to fight for these
things all the time?
Macedonia is very interesting, as the Roma
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Photo: Jakob Weber
AN INTERVIEW WITH MUSTAFA YAKUPOV, A PROJECT PARTICIPANT FROM MACEDONIA.
generally do not suffer because of this. The
main problems are health care and the lack
of housing. In education, the Roma are doing very well—they are attending universities, cultivating themselves. We even have
a special ministry, so that at the political
level, our voice is also heard. However,
this is not enough to solve all the problems
connected to the Roma’s health or employment. Education is not the only solution.
Everything comes full circle: the Roma are
poor. Why are they poor? Because they
have no education! Why are they unemployed? Because they are uneducated. And
because of the fact that they have no education, they cannot find a good job, and they
live in poverty. In Macedonia, and several
other countries a special program is taking place—the Roma Decade, from 2005 to
2015. However, I do not know what will
happen after 2015. I am curious about the
results because we have many problems
that remain unsolved.
Do you see any difference between my and
your visit to this place? You come from
the world, which suffered because of Nazi
Germany. I am from Germany, a country
that bears responsibility for all these awful
things.
I think that there is no difference. No need
to blame yourself and you should not
blame others. Even today there are people
who kill others. We must be aware of that
and contemplate the question of why people are, in any way, able to do something
like this to others.
Interview by: Jakob Weber
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History
FROM GANOBIS’S CABINET
ANNA SZALBÓT (1906-1942)
uch a parasol was desired by every elegant lady of years gone by. Buying one
was no easy matter. Today, it is simply
impossible, because the parasol has become
a historical artifact.
selfless supporter and faithful
promoter of the movement.
She was also a member of the
Circle of Polish Women, and
sympathized with the peasant
movement.
In 1941, the family of Paweł
Bobek, a well known peasant activist in Cieszyn Silesia,
put her in touch with Wojciech Jekiełek of Osiek, near
Oświęcim. Jekiełek was one
of the underground leaders
in the Land of Oświęcim and
the commander of the Peasant
Battalions (BCh) in the Biała
Region. Anna Szalbót took her
vows and became a member
of the BCh in June 1941, under
the pseudonym “Rachela.” She
joined the relief effort being
carried out in the vicinity of
Auschwitz by Jekiełek’s group,
and became one of the mainstays of the campaign. Enjoying great trust among Lutheran
circles in Cieszyn Silesia, she
organized drives there to collect food, medicine, and clothing for the prisoners. She also
encouraged the womenfolk to
knit socks, gloves, and other
items to help keep the prisoners warm. She personally went
around collecting for donations
used to buy clothing and medicine. She used her old contacts
in the health service to obtain
medicine and surgical instruments for the prisoners from
local hospitals and pharmacies.
When an epidemic of scabies
was raging in Auschwitz during the summer of 1941, she
used all means possible to obtain effective remedies in the
form of Mitigal cream and the
S
preparation known as “Peruvian balsam.” On more than one
occasion, she would sneak up
to the camp and dropped off
food and medicine for the prisoners. A uniqueand characteristic way in which she helped
was administering injections to
prisoners laboring outside the
camp. Her activity could hardly fail to attract the attentions
of the Gestapo. In danger of
being arrested, “Rachel” went
into hiding out in Sosnowiec,
and later in Oświęcim and
Osiek, from where she was finally sent to Warsaw. There, as
“Helena Wodecka,” she served
as a courier for the Peasant Battalions national headquarters.
At the end of 1942, she arrived
in the area near the camp with
a large quantity of medicine
she had obtained for the prisoners in Warsaw and smuggled across the border from the
General Government. She sat
up with Wojciech Jekiełek on
the night of December 29/30,
preparing food parcels for the
camp. Several hours later, at
dawn, a German gendarmerie
patrol caught them by surprise.
When the Germans ordered
them to halt, “Rachela” tried to
run away, and one of the gendarmes shot her dead (Jekiełek
was captured, but managed
to escape). The Germans took
Anna Szalbót’s remains inside the Auschwitz camp and
burned them in the crematorium. After the war, she was
posthumously awarded the
Cross of Grunwald Third Class
and the Oświęcim Cross.
Mirosław Obstarczyk
Photo: Mirosław Ganobis
Born into a large, poor peasant family in Wisła Malinka,
Cieszyn Silesia, on June 18,
1906, she lost her father when
she was six. Her mother remarried. Her stepfather was killed
in the First World War in 1914,
and her mother died afterwards. Anna’s grandparents
in Nydek, Zaolzie, raised her,
and she attended the village
school there. Her grandparents
died soon afterwards, and she
moved to Wisła as a manual
laborer on a large farm. She
dreamed of a profession where
she could help others, so she
attended and graduated from
nursing school at the Lutheran
charity home in Dzięgielów,
Cieszyn Silesia, and joined a
Lutheran women’s congregation, becoming a deaconess.
She worked for a time at the
Country Hospital in Cieszyn,
and then, until 1938, at the
Mother and Child Station in
Golasowice. Until the outbreak
of the war, she worked as a visiting nurse in her hometown
of Wisła. She was also active
in volunteer circles. She had
first come into contact with
the scout movement while
living with her grandparents
in Zaolzie, and she became a
PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
Parasol
Apolonia
Bukietyńska
(Pomietlarz) was born in
Oświęcim and went to
school here. She graduated
from the Stanisław Konarski High School. As an
outstanding singer, she was
a prima donna at the Silesian Opera in Bytom. Often
she performed concerts in
philharmonic halls and on
Polish Radio. She performed
VESTIGES OF HISTORY
FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF THE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM
in many countries around
the world. It is certainly one
of the most famous people
from the Oświęcim area.
I know that while traveling
the world, she proudly
highlighted where she came
from. The parasol, which
I have in my collection, is a
wonderful memento of this
wonderful woman.
Mirosław Ganobis
T
The rosary shown on the
photograph was made in
Auschwitz
by
prisoner
Franciszka Studzińska, who
managed to carry it out of
the camp and preserve it. In
1997, it made its way into the
Museum’s collection.
Other items were also made
out of bread. A former
Auschwitz prisoner writes:
“I do not remember the name
of that prisoner, who created
the chess pieces that were at
least 10 centimeters tall. He
also made a figure of Tadeusz Kościuszko on a horse.
These were very attractive
figures and they were made
of bread. It is a shame that
they have not survived to
this day.”
At
other
concentration
camps, prisons, and ghettos,
we can also find items made
out of bread. Tadeusz Radwan, who spent almost two
years in the Tarnów prison,
through enormous sacrifices
of bread made the various
figures, portraits, and even
scenes from the prison. He
worked with his fingers, also
using needles and a knife
made out of a spoon. In a few
of the figures there were hid-
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den compartments, in which
secret messages could be
passed from cell to cell.
The rosary made of bread
from Auschwitz is full of
symbolism and meaning,
which is difficult to discuss
in this place. Perhaps, it will
make us reflect: “…nevertheless, they worked on one
thread, making a necklace,
or a rosary. Beads—each one
distinct—but similar to each
other.” (Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz).
Agnieszka Sieradzka
Collections Department, A-BSM
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he rosary made of bread is an expression of faith by people who
were locked behind the barbed wire of the camp. The very material that it was made of is evidence of its value for the prisoners.
Dr. Aleksander Giermański recalled: “I remember the items made out
of bread (rosaries, crosses), which were left behind by the prisoners who
were locked in the bunkers.” Kneaded balls of bread were strung onto
a thread and in the last hours of their life, prisoners prayed using them.
Rosary
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Photographer
Photo: Jakob Weber
Photo: Jakob Weber
Photo: Sebastian Schröder-Esch
Photo: Isaiah Urken
Photo: Jakob Weber
Project organized by German Maximilian Kolbe Werk had title: Memory and Commemoration in the Era
of Web 2.0. From 23 to 27 January,
young people from eight countries,
in the company of Holocaust survivors, were learning journalism, recognizing in the same time the history of Auschwitz. The second part
of the project will be held in March
in Weimar and Buchenwald.
Details can be found at Maximilian-Kolbe-werk.blogspot.
com.
Photo: Sebastian Schröder-Esch
PHOTO JOURNAL
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saving authenticity —common responsibility 66th anniversary of the

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