News

More than two thousand people, among them former inmates of Auschwitz, Polish pilgrims from all over the country, and the staff of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum attended a Mass, concelebrated by cardinals, bishops, priests and monks at the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz.

Conservators from the Auschwitz Memorial Site have reassembled and restored the original sign, bearing the inscription Arbeit macht frei, which was destroyed by thieves. In Oś you can read about how the restoration work progressed as well as see photographs documenting the work that was done.

Several hundred people attended observances marking Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day on the grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The ceremony was held to mark the sixty-seventh anniversary of the liquidation of the so-called “Gypsy Family Camp” (Zigeunerfamilienlager). The Nazis murdered almost three thousand men women and children in the Birkenau gas chambers on the night of August 2/3, 1944.

The Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has expanded the series “Voices of Memory” by releasing a further volume. It is dedicated to the Roma, who were murdered in Auschwitz.

The Warsaw Uprising broke out 67 years ago, on August 1, 1944. The heroic combat went on for 63 days. On the anniversary of these events, Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, himself a native of Warsaw, joined Oświęcim mayor Janusz Chwierut and his deputy Maria Pędrak in laying a wreath at the Death Wall on the grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz , paying homage to the heroes and victims of the Uprising including the thousands of residents of the capital deported to Auschwitz.

Being Human in Auschwitz was the subject of this year’s nationwide contest Auschwitz—my land. History and memory years later. Participating in the project were nearly 530 students from 25 schools. In this edition of Oś we publish the winning entries, literary and photographic works.