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40th Session of the International Auschwitz Council
The 40th session of the International Auschwitz Council was held at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews on 29 October. It was chaired by Prof. Dariusz Stola.
The meeting was attended by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Hanna Wróblewska, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, who presented nominations to new council members: Dr. Havi Dreyfus and Rabbi Michael Schudrich.
During the meeting, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz Museum, presented the "Light of Remembrance," the highest award of the Memorial, to a council member, Prof. Michael Berenbaum. This award is granted for an outstanding contribution to education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. It honors those engaged in maintaining and transmitting the memory of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.
The Council members observed a minute of silence to honor the memory of Prof. Yehuda Bauer, who passed away on 18 October.
At the beginning of the session, the director of the POLIN Museum, Zygmunt Stępiński, greeted the guests: "The POLIN Museum is a big question. We meet here because two Europes, two European traditions, and two facets of our history meet here. The first is dark, menacing, and downright terrifying. For centuries, we have been accompanied by xenophobia, intolerance, exclusion, persecution, and finally destruction and death. However, there is another tradition, a legacy of cultural penetration of various traditions, openness to what is different, without blurring differences and uniformity, but inspiring people to change, create, search, and develop and thrive. We know literally only one way to make the choice of this path easier - education in all its dimensions. This is a task that will never have its end. Here I see the space for cooperation between the council and our museum."
Marek Zając, the secretary of the International Auschwitz Council, spoke about the challenges facing the council: "In the coming weeks leading up to 27 January 2025, our thoughts will be preoccupied primarily with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. However, Auschwitz matters can be divided into two main fields. One of them concerns exhibition issues. Work is underway on the New Main Exhibition and the New Polish Exhibition. Plans also include an exhibition of camp art created by prisoners either during the operation of the camp or after the war. The second field involves educational activities. We are dealing with world-unique projects, such as virtual tours of the Auschwitz Museum in real-time. We have high hopes for this tool."
The main topic of the presentation by Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz Museum, was the upcoming 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which will take place in a special tent above the gate of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.
"We already see great interest from the world. Since August, we have received requests for interviews and articles related to the anniversary itself and a broader universal view of memory. If the media are interested in this many months in advance, there is a chance that this topic will be appropriately noticed," said Piotr Cywiński.
All Auschwitz survivors, each with one accompanying person, are invited to the anniversary commemoration event. "Numerous state delegations will also be present. We already have over twenty preliminary declarations, often at the highest possible level. Soon, we will also contact educational institutions with which we cooperate," he said.
"It is essential that we have managed to depoliticize the commemorations. The main words will come from the Survivors. This is to be a day of memory and focus on memory. The Survivors have very well received this," emphasized Piotr Cywiński.
The symbol of the commemorations will be a freight wagon, which is currently located at the site of the unloading and selection platform at the former Birkenau camp. This wagon will be moved in front of the Death Gate, and it is before it that candles will be placed—both by the Survivors and the heads of state delegations—to commemorate all the victims of Auschwitz.
In his presentation, the director also discussed what has happened in the Museum since the last Council session. He mentioned, among other things, attendance, which is returning to pre-pandemic levels and should reach about 1.8 million people this year.
"We observe a steady increase. I am convinced that it would be greater were it not for Russia's attack on Ukraine, which poses a psychological barrier for parents of students from distant countries, and of course the increase in certain antisemitic tendencies following the terrorist attack by Hamas," said Piotr Cywiński.
He also mentioned the "Auschwitz in Front of Your Eyes" platform launched in January, allowing live guided tours of the Memorial Site online: "This is perhaps the first time – on an unprecedented scale – to interact with a particular group of visitors, whom we usually do not see among those visiting - managers of large firms and corporations. We have already managed to interest several companies in using online tours to build certain ethical foundations based on memory in their companies. We are currently preparing an entire project that will be addressed to the world of international corporations."
Among the most important events, the director also recalled the 84th anniversary of the deportation of the first Poles to KL Auschwitz on June 14, as well as the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the camp for Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which took place on August 2.
"There were many people and large groups of young people there. It was a very solemn and important ceremony. For the first time, the director of Yad Vashem was present, who delivered a very important speech, which, in my opinion, went down in history. I wanted to thank Dani Dayan for this. On the anniversary, we also organized an educational conference, 'Sinti and Roma: Exclusion – Extermination – Memory,' at the Museum," he said.
Talking about exhibition work, the director mentioned, among other things, the work on the final part of the New Main Exhibition, as well as the New Polish Exhibition, which replaced the temporary exhibition dedicated to the fate of Polish citizens in the Auschwitz camp.
"We expect the Polish exhibition to be opened in mid-2025, while the first part of the main exhibition to be opened - in fact, the last content-wise part - should be ready by the end of next year. I do not see any risks of delaying these works at this time," said Piotr Cywiński.
"Preparations are also underway to create a completely new camp art exhibition, both in terms of gathering funds and the concept itself. This can be a very interesting tool for showing the strength of dehumanization and various human emotions in the camp. In many drawings, this is particularly poignant. We believe that through art, we can tell about a person's inner life in the camp. If we manage to save even a part of these human feelings, it will be crucial," the director emphasized.
Among the new publications, the director mentioned primarily the completed five-volume chronology of the history of Auschwitz.
"We see there the results of the latest research by our entire team of historians. It is their gigantic work. The entire thing is being published in Polish, but work on the English translation is already underway. There will also be more languages available. The researchers of the Museum can feel great satisfaction and pride. Now we can start the next stage - the preparation of a new monograph on the history of Auschwitz," said director Cywiński.
The director mentioned educational events such as a seminar for Ukrainian teachers, the International Summer Academy, which was so popular that an additional online edition had to be created, meetings for youth, also with Survivors, related to the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, and a seminar for Museum staff who visited the Maison d’Izieu site.
He also spoke about a lesson translated into Japanese dedicated to the most important issues of the history of the Auschwitz camp as well as the opening of a hostel right by the Visitor Service Center. The hostel is intended primarily for volunteers and participants in various seminars and study stays. The entire project of the new Visitor Services Center won an award from the Association of Polish Architects in the category of "architecture in the space of heritage."
Director Cywiński also spoke about the Krakow conference Medical Review Auschwitz. "At this point, there has been a return to medical reflection related to people imprisoned in Auschwitz on very different levels. However, historical texts published many decades ago are now being translated and made available on the Internet. I believe this is the only huge resource for scientific reflection on what happens to a person in the camp. We support this project and are also looking for funds for translations."
He also mentioned the conservation work being carried out on the former camp site, which is funded by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and recently summarized at a meeting of the International FAB Committee.
The Council also listened to information about the situation of the Treblinka Memorial, presented by the director of the Department of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Piotr Rypson, the deputy director of the Treblinka Museum Iwona Wasilewska, and Dr. Sebastian Różycki from the Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography at the Warsaw University of Technology.
"The Council also deals with other memorial sites operating on the territories of former German Nazi concentration and extermination camps. Treblinka is currently coming to the forefront, and we face many important issues: a new museum and exhibition building and a new exhibition. Very inspiring archaeological discoveries are making us rethink the space of Treblinka. I hope that during the next meeting, we can organize a visit to this site," said Council secretary Marek Zając.
After the meeting, Council members visited the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
