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On June 14th 1940, the transport from the prison in Tarnów amounting to 728 Poles arrived to Auschwitz. Among the prisoners, who were brought to the camp, there were soldiers participating in the September Campaign, members of underground resistance organizations, secondary school students and higher education students, as well as a small group of Polish Jews. This date marks the beginning of the functioning of the camp. According to the decision of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, June 14th is the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of German Nazi Concentration Camps and Extermination Camps.

On June 14th, marking the anniversary of the deportation of first Poles to KL Auschwitz, a new exhibition was made available to the public in two halls on the ground floor of Block 11 in the former Auschwitz I camp, devoted to the resistance movement in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. Among the participants of the inauguration ceremony there were among others Deputy Prime Minister of Poland Beata Szydło and Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Jarosław Sellin.

The continuous high attendance at the monographic exhibition “Auschwitz Not long ago. Not far away” in Madrid has encouraged the organisers to extend its presence in the capital city of Spain to 7 October. The exhibition has been seen by over 350 thousand persons, including more than 55 thousand pupils.

The exhibition “Face to Face. Art in Auschwitz” - a unique project of the National Museum in Cracow in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum prepared for the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Auschwitz Museum - received the Sybilla 2017 in the historical and archaeological exhibitions category. Museum event of the year. The exhibition presented last year in the Cracow Szołayski tenement was the first of such extensive presentation of original works made in the camp by former prisoners of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

The summary of the 2012-2018 term of office of the International Auschwitz Council and the report on the work of the Auschwitz Museum in recent years, were some of the topics of the 34th session of the International Auschwitz Council, which was held in Auschwitz, 7 and 8 May 2018, chaired by Prof. Barbara Engelking. The meeting was attended by the deputy minister of culture and national heritage, Jarosław Sellin, who read a letter from Deputy Prime Minister Prof. Piotr Gliński addressed to members of the IAC.

“Family Memory” was the topic of the discussion panel held on 28 April at the Auschwitz Memorial in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Witold Pilecki’s escape from the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. It was dedicated to the significance of the Memory of the camp’s victims in Polish families.