News

The posthumous award of the title "Righteous among the Nations of the World" to Maria Kotarba took place at the Polish embassy in London on October 24, 2006. The Yad Vashem Memorial Institute in Jerusalem bestowed the honor in recognition of the aid she gave to Jews during her imprisonment in concentration camps during the Second World War. Relatives of Maria Kotarba accepted the medal in her name.

The Zen Peacemakers will hold their annual Bearing Witness at the Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi concentration camp in Poland - a place of personal and universal human tragedy during World War II.

Oct. 10, Goleszów (PAP-Polish Press Agency) – A memorial chamber dedicated to the prisoners of Golleschau, an Auschwitz sub-camp, was opened on Tuesday at the cultural center in Goleszów, Cieszyń Silesia, Poland. The chamber is complemented by an educational walking trail around the local stone quarry, where prisoners, most of them Jewish, worked under murderous conditions during the war.

For some time now, residents of the housing settlements adjacent to the Museum have been concerned about various expert recommendations connected with the so-called Regulatory Plan for the Grounds and Immediate Surroundings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Site as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Object.

Oct. 6, Gdańsk (PAP-Polish Press Agency) – An inquiry by the Gdańsk Branch of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation has concluded that soap was made from human fat and used for general cleaning purposes at the Anatomy Institute of the Gdańsk Medical Academy, under the direction of Professor Rudolf Spanner, during the Second World War.

Anna Pawełczyńska's famous book Values and Violence: A Sociological Analysis [of Auschwitz] has gone on sale at the Museum's internet shop (it is available in Polish and German).