News

On the occasion of the Italian edition of the book “Epitaph”, the director of the Auschwitz Museum Piotr M.A. Cywiński, PhD was the guest of one of the largest literary festivals in the world, held each year in the Italian city of Mantua. The book was released by the Bollati Boringhieri publishing house under the title “Non c’è una fine. Trasmettere la memoria di Auschwitz” translated by Carlo Greppi.

During work on the new main exhibition of the Museum we were able to establish the identity of 8 prisoners, whose camp photographs can be found at the Russian exhibition in block 14 titled “Tragedy—valour—liberation”.

On 16-27 July 2017, the International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum organised another edition of the seminar “Auschwitz in the collective consciousness in Poland and the world. The role and significance of the Auschwitz-Birkenau memory for Jews and Poles” addressed to Israeli educators. 18 persons attended the seminar - guides and employees of institutions that deal with the topic of the Holocaust.

The Franciscan priest Maximilian Maria Kolbe was killed 76 years ago in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. A solemn Mass was celebrated on the anniversary of this event at Block 11, which housed the prison camp where the clergy was murdered. Several hundred-people attended the ceremony, including former prisoners of Auschwitz. The Mass was presided over by the auxiliary bishop of Bielsko-Żywiec diocese, Piotr Greger.

The conservation project has been completed on securing the northern and western wall of the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium III undressing rooms on the site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. The works were financed with funds from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.

73 years ago, on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, the Germans liquidated the so-called family camp for Gypsies (Zigeunerfamilienlager) in Auschwitz II Birkenau. At that time, nearly 3 thousand children, women and men the last Roma prisoners of the camp were murdered in the gas chambers. In connection with these tragic events, August 2 is commemorated as the Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day.