News

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.

A discussion on the concept for a total makeover of the Jewish exhibition in block 27 at the Auschwitz Memorial was held at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem on August 31, 2010. Participants included former prisoners, Holocaust survivors, historians, and experts from many countries, including Professor Israel Gutman, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Ruth Bondi, Moshe Safdie, Shulamit Imber, Natan Sharanski, Michael Berenbaum, Marian Turski, Henryk Noah Flug, and the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński. Avner Shalev, the director of Yad Vashem, hosted the experts, and Elie Wiesel oversaw the work of the whole group.

A unique collection of over 150 medical implements was donated to the Auschwitz-Birkenau. The tools were found after the liberation of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, within the area that was closed and inaccessible from outside, the camp interest zone (so-called “Interessengebiet”), close to the train station in Oświęcim. They were in private hands for over 60 years and through a local collector and enthusiast of history they were just donated to the Museum.