News

Judges from the Constitutional Tribunal of the Polish Republic and the Constitutional Court of the Italian Republic made a joint visit to the Museum on Friday, March 31. They toured the site of the German concentration camp and laid wreaths at the Death Wall in Auschwitz and the Monument to Victims of the Camp in Birkenau.

March 26 marked the 64th anniversary of the first transport of women to the German Auschwitz camp. There were 999 female prisoners on the first train from Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp. Most of them were criminals and “asocials.” There were also between ten and twenty political prisoners among them. On that same day, the Germans also transported 999 Jewish women to the camp from Poprad in Slovakia.

A precise definition of the faiths of the people deported to Auschwitz is no simple matter, mostly because of the lack of source materials. Most of the people deported to Auschwitz were never registered in the camp, and the Nazis destroyed most of the records containing information on prisoners before the Russians liberated the camp in January 1945.

Polish prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz attended the final session during the present term of office of the International Auschwitz Council on February 27, 2006. The meeting covered ongoing affairs at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and a summing-up of the Council’s six-year tenure. Marcinkiewicz thanked the current members and presented them with diplomas to mark their membership. “I am convinced that all the issues that are important for the International Council will continue to be handled in a way that prompts remembrance on the one hand, and that looks to the future on the other. Remembrance has tremendous significance in building a good future,” said the Prime Minister.

Jakob Silberstein traveled to the Museum several days ago. Born in Rypin in central Poland on November 15, 1924, he is a watchmaker and goldsmith by trade. During the war, the Nazis sent him to Nosarzewo (near Mława, Poland), where he performed compulsory labor on the construction of an airstrip.

The artistic collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum have added a painting by the contemporary Polish artist Maria Kantor-Lizuniec, a graduate of the Fine Arts Academy in Cracow who specializes in artistic weaving and easel painting. She has exhibited in Poland, Germany, Austria, France, Scandinavia, the USA, Canada, and many other countries.