News

President Aleksander Kwasniewski decorated former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners and members of the Auschwitz Preservation Association.

An international conference (http://www.holocaustforum.gov.se/) on education about, the commemoration of, and research on the Holocaust was held in Stockholm from January 26-28, 2000. The government of Sweden was the host, and invited conferees from 45 countries. The conference was intended to provide participating countries with an opportunity to express their intention to combat racism, antisemitism, and ethnic conflicts, from the starting point of the Holocaust. An exchange of views and experiences took place during panel discussions and workshops.

The Polish version of the Museum's internet site is now open.

Ceremonies marking the 55th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and the city of Oswiecim were held on January 26 - 27, 2000.

District Court in Oswiecim found Kazimierz Switon guilty of slandering the Polish sejm (parliament). Switon gained notoriety in 1999 for placing crosses in the "gravel pit." Residents of Oswiecim filed a "suspicion of the commission of a crime by Kazimierz Switon" with the public prosecutor last spring. They felt that the fliers that Switon affixed to the fence around the gravel pit and distributed to visitors contained slanderous formulations about the Sejm, as well as about Germans and Jews.

"Seeing..." is the third and last part of a planned cycle of exhibitions from the collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The intention is to show Auschwitz through artistic forms created under varying conditions by eyewitnesses, as well as by artists who were not directly affected by the brutality of Auschwitz.