News

The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has published the sixth volume in the series "Voices of Memory. " The gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz are above all a symbol of the Shoah, but they also have a symbolic importance for the Roma, Poles, Russians and those of other nations, whose members had suffered and died in this, as well as at other death camps.

An exhibition titled ...the memories live on... will open at United Nations Headquarters in New York on January 24 to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It presents drawings from a sketchbook belonging to an unknown prisoner at the German Nazi Concentration Camp Auschwitz. These are the only art works made in the camp with scenes depicting the fate of Jewish transports from arrival at the ramp to death in the gas chambers.

In mid-November the Auschwitz Museum was visited by Batsheva Dagan, an Israeli writer and former Auschwitz prisoner, as well as author of the poetry collection, Imagination: Blessed Be, Cursed Be. In this Oś, you will find an interview with Batsheva Dagan, a selection of her poems, and an article about her meeting with teachers and students.

In 2010, there were 1,380,000 visitors to the grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz. This is a record figure in the more than sixty years of the Memorial, which is the most visited site of its kind in the world and the most visited museum in Poland. The constantly rising attendance reflects the significance of this place as a symbol for the world.

November is the month during which we commemorate two sad anniversaries. November 22, 1940 the first execution by firing squad was held in Auschwitz. A year later, November 11—Polish Independence Day—the Germans held executions at the Death Wall in the courtyard of Block 11 using a silenced small caliber weapon. We are able to recount these events now through the testimony of witnesses as well as archival documents.

The Auschwitz Museum is the first institution of its type to implement a pilot online education program. The initiative by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has spurred great interest among Internet users. Although the course is currently available only in Polish, there have been declarations of interest from people outside Poland