News

After changes by the Minister of Culture to the Museum Statute, The International Center for Teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust formally came into existence on may 13, 2005.

Oświęcim mayor Janusz Marszałek blames the lack of a current local zoning plan for the failure to obtain a ruling covering the use of the land on which the Old Theater stands, including any construction there. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim wants to locate the International Center for Teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust there.

A meeting organized by the Museum examined the results of studies of the history and present state of the original camp kitchen building, which stands near the Auschwitz I Arbeit macht frei gate.

The “Judenrampe,” the railroad tracks between the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps where the Germans sent countless transports full of Jews, Poles, Roma and others who would become victims of the camp during the war, was opened to visitors on January 27, 2005.

On Thursday, over a thousand prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, leaders of more than 40 countries -including, Poland, Israel, Russia, France, the USA and Germany - commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Red Army's liberation of the camp where the Germans exterminated around 1.5 million people.

Some 10,000 people, including 2,000 former prisoners, will attend the January observances of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. An Educational Forum devoted to Teaching the Holocaust will accompany the official ceremonies, said Andrzej Przewoźnik, secretary of the Council for the Protection of the Remembrance of Combat and Martyrdom, said in Cracow on Tuesday.