News

January 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.

"The fight against time and the destruction of the historical space of the original camp is today the greatest challenge and our shared responsibility—to the victims and to the Survivors, but also to future generations, our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren," we read in the 2010 Annual Report of the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum. The sixty-eight color pages of this Polish-English publication include information about the most important events of 2010.

The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has published the sixth volume in the series "Voices of Memory. " The gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz are above all a symbol of the Shoah, but they also have a symbolic importance for the Roma, Poles, Russians and those of other nations, whose members had suffered and died in this, as well as at other death camps.

An exhibition titled ...the memories live on... will open at United Nations Headquarters in New York on January 24 to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It presents drawings from a sketchbook belonging to an unknown prisoner at the German Nazi Concentration Camp Auschwitz. These are the only art works made in the camp with scenes depicting the fate of Jewish transports from arrival at the ramp to death in the gas chambers.

In mid-November the Auschwitz Museum was visited by Batsheva Dagan, an Israeli writer and former Auschwitz prisoner, as well as author of the poetry collection, Imagination: Blessed Be, Cursed Be. In this Oś, you will find an interview with Batsheva Dagan, a selection of her poems, and an article about her meeting with teachers and students.

In 2010, there were 1,380,000 visitors to the grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz. This is a record figure in the more than sixty years of the Memorial, which is the most visited site of its kind in the world and the most visited museum in Poland. The constantly rising attendance reflects the significance of this place as a symbol for the world.