News

A highly interesting collection of decorated greeting cards made by Auschwitz prisoners has been added to the Museum collections. Helena Datoń-Szpak, who worked in the SS canteen as a young girl during the war, donated the priceless items to the Museum. Datoń-Szpak aided prisoners in various ways and acted as an intermediary in their illegal correspondence. The prisoners gave her the handwritten, hand-painted cards to mark holidays and name days.

The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has concluded the recruiting process for this year’s seminar, “Judaism—History and Culture of Polish Jews—Holocaust” at Yad Vashem, which is organized for Polish teachers, guides, museum curators, and educators engaged in teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.

Two conferences on Memorials at the sites of German concentration camps and extermination centers took place in early September. The First Remembrance Forum Seminar of Polish Martyrdom Museums at the Stutthof Museum featured discussions focusing on education. A conference at the Polish Academy of Sciences Research Station in Vienna compared the situation at memorials in Poland and Austria. Members of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum staff attended both.

For four days during a conference entitled “Auschwitz and the Holocaust against the backdrop of genocide in the twentieth century”, teachers from across Poland attended lectures, as well as discussed the nature and the consequences of genocide in the modern world. Discussion also focused on contemporary challenges facing education about tragic events of the past. During the conference, which took place at the International Youth Meeting Center, panel discussions were held dedicated to the topic of “responsibility” in which several spoke, including: Prof. Zdzisław Mach, Prof. Andrzej Zoll and Zbigniew Gluza. In Oś you will find excerpts of the debate, as well as an article on the conference.

The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and with the Warsaw Center for Social—Educational Innovation and Seminars, from September 3 to 5, 2010 organized an educational conference entitled “Education about the Second World War and the Holocaust—new contexts and challenges”. The conference has taken place annually since 2007 in the first weekend of September and its participants include teachers from all around Poland.

In the name of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski has named new members of the Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom (ROPWiM). They replace members of the Council who died in the tragic crash of the Polish presidential aircraft at Smoleńsk, Russia on April 10. Among the new members is Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.