News

About one million people visited the site of the Nazi Auschwitz Camp in 2006. The number of visitors to the buildings and exhibitions at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has been rising steadily for several years. Attendance in 2006 exceeded that of the previous year.

Berlin, Jan. 26. (PAP-Polish Press Agency)—German artists performed during the war at the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp, participating en masse in cultural programs provided for the SS men in the camp garrison.

Stanisław Frączysty of Chochołów, recipient of the Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari Order, marked his 90th birthday on February 5. He was a Union of Armed Struggle-Home Army (ZWZ-AK) soldier and Tatra mountain courier during the Second World War. In an operation carried off with great bravado in October 1941, he led Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz across the border.

On Saturday, January 27, 2007, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum held ceremonies marking the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp. The principal guests were several dozen former prisoners and 21 people from Oświęcim who aided prisoners during the years of the German occupation. They were awarded Knights’ and Officers’ Crosses of the Order of Poland Reborn.

January 15, Oświęcim (PAP-Polish Press Agency) - January 17 marks the date when the first group of prisoners marched out of Auschwitz as part of the evacuation to other camps. Shortly before the arrival of the Red Army, the Germans led approximately 56,000 prisoners out of Auschwitz and its sub-camps. In view of the conditions that prevailed at the time and the number of victims, this event is referred to as the Death March.

The Auschwitz–Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim has the honor of inviting to the commemoration of the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest Nazi German death camp, on January 27, 2007.