News

Tuesday marked the 59th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp by the Soviet Army. The observances began with a “March of Silence” through the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum on Monday.

The Municipal Tourist Information Point in Oświęcim has been moved from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to the Maja Tourist Service center, several hundred meters away. The decision was taken by Oświęcim mayor Janusz Marszałek.

An educational session for post-intermediate-school teachers and students on the fate of Jewish children rescued during the Holocaust, their lives after the war, and the attitudes of the Polish public to the Shoah was held on November 28. Organized by the Museum Education Center, the session accompanied a visit to the Museum by Krystyna Budnicka, Anna Drabik, Elżbieta Ficowska, and Joanna Sobolewska-Pyz, members of the Polish Children of the Holocaust Association.

In May 2002, Fritjof Meyer, a journalist with the influential German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, published an article titled “Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkentnisse durch neue Archivfunde” (The Number of Victims of Auschwitz: New Findings in the Light of Newly-Discovered Documents) in the German scholarly journal Osteuropa. Meyer does not deny the existence of the gas chambers, but he lowers the number of people murdered in Auschwitz to approximately 510,000.

The first Polish supplementary history textbook devoted to the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War has been published. It is intended for students in intermediate and secondary schools.

During the next session of the International Auschwitz Council will be held in Warsaw on November 3-4, 2003, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum administration will present preliminary plans for the “international Center for Teaching Auschwitz and the Holocaust,” which will be created within the Museum as a further development of the educational activity of the various Museum departments, including the Education Center.