News

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has acquired two new exhibits: paper sacks for cement from one of the sub-camps, and a portable warming kettle for soup.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim has lost an endowment worth almost 2 million zloty. The Grand Circle Foundation of Boston has withdrawn from plans to help underwrite the future headquarters of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust (ICEAH). The lost funding had been earmarked for the adaptation of the so-called “Old Theatre” building, located directly adjacent to the site of the Auschwitz I-Main Camp.

The world premiere of a film designed to counter misconceptions about the existence of „Polish death camps” took place on the country’s national day, November 11. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the film Upside Down to all the country’s embassies and consulates. The title refers to the total reversal of roles—the roles of perpetrator and victim—in this case.

On 6 May 2008 an aerial scanning of the former camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau will be conducted. The Museum will be temporarily closed for visitors: Auschwitz I until 8.30 am, and Auschwitz II-Birkenau until 11.30 am

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum preservation experts have made a contribution to the observances marking 150 years of schooling in Brzeszcze, Poland—a few kilometers from the Auschwitz site. The professional restoration—in the modern laboratory at the Museum—and publishing of the chronicles of the Brzeszcze school, covering the years 1890-1947, was a highlight of the anniversary.

The American Sacred Grounds Foundation has proposed the erection of a Sanctuary and Holocaust Monument in Oświęcim. It would be a place for meditation, prayer, veneration, and memory, while serving at the same time as a final resting place for Holocaust victims, according to Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum spokesman Jarosław Mensfelt.