News

The beginnings of the extermination of Jews in KL Auschwitz in the light of the source materials - a new publication of the Museum, through the analysis of 74 archival documents, most of them previously unpublished, describes preparation to the mass extermination of Jews in gas chambers and the process of turning Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp into a centre of mass extermination. Authors of the analysis are historians of the Research Center of the Museum: Igor Bartosik, Łukasz Martyniak and Piotr Setkiewicz.

The "Forbidden Art" exhibition is currently on display at Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas, the place where the general and president of the United States was born and brought up, which is also the site of his burial. The exhibition prepared by the Auschwitz Memorial presents stories behind 20 artworks made illegally by prisoners of Nazi German concentration camps who risked their lives to complete them.

On June 14th, representatives of the directors and employees of Auschwitz Memorial, together with Dyonizy Lechowicz, former prisoners of Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen camps, laid a wreath under the Execution Wall situated next to Block 11, to commemorate the National Day of Remembrance of Nazi Concentration Camps’ Victims. 74 years ago German Nazis brought to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp a group of 728 Polish political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów. This date is considered to be the day when the camp began to operate.

Preparations for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, which will take place on 27 January 2015, were the main topic of the session of the International Auschwitz Council. The meeting, held in Oświęcim on 10 and 11 June, was chaired by Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski.

30 countries have already supported the Perpetual Capital created and managed by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. Financial declarations amount to EUR 101 million in total, 67 million of which have already been placed in the Foundation's bank accounts. On 9 June 2014, in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Warsaw, the Foundation Council held its sixth meeting.

“Women of war” was the main topic of the 5th Polish National Conference “Auschwitz and the Holocaust against the backdrop of genocide in the twentieth century”, which took place in Oświęcim between 5 and 8 June. The aim of the conference was to show situation of women during armed conflicts and wars, as well as in places where human rights abuse takes place. One of the organizers of the conference was International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.