News

The Polish embassy in Ottawa has asked the Canadian government to counteract the slandering of Poland by the Canadian media. On April 30, the national news on CTV television carried a story on John Demaniuk’s being stripped of his US citizenship. The reporter referred to “the Polish camp in Treblinka.” As a result, the Polish embassy lodged a protest with CTV. On the part of the network, Robert Hurst replied that he did not regard the term as inappropriate and that it was used in a geographical sense, as it is used throughout North America.

The Fifth International Children’s Folklore Festival concluded on Friday with an appeal for peace addressed to “the powers that be in this world,” proclaimed amidst the ruins of the crematoria at the site of the German death camp, Birkenau.

Memorial Book: The Extermination in Auschwitz Concentration Camp of Poles Expelled from the Zamość Region in 1942-1943, by Helena Kubica.

May 9 marked the 59th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp by the US Army. About 200,000 people were imprisoned in Mauthausen and its several dozen sub-camps during the Second World War. Among them were some 50,000 Poles, mostly in Gusen, the largest of the sub-camps. The majority of them perished.

Preparatory work has begun on the adaptation of the Auschwitz kitchen building as a gallery of camp art. The building was not restored after the war and fell into ruin before being thoroughly renovated in 1961-1963. All those years ago, the work was justified on the grounds that “despite the high cost of the renovation, it would be inexcusable for this building to be lost, not only in view of its role in Auschwitz Concentration Camp, but also because it represents a huge exhibition space on one level.” After that renovation, however, the idea remained unrealized. The Museum adapted the building as workshops for carpenters, machinists, sheet-metal workers, and painters, and devoted part of it to facilities for renovation workers from the preservation department. The building has been empty since the opening in 2002 of the new preservation workshops in the visitor reception building.

The year-long course in museum studies at the Jagiellonian University Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology Institute has ended. As has been the case over the several years that the course has been taught, Auschwitz-Museum Birkenau staff members attended. This time, there were eight of them.