News
Annual Report for 2007 Released.Polish Government Expresses Full Support for the Mission of Museum
“It is difficult, at the site of a tragedy, to speak about hopes for a better future for our world; remembrance, awareness, and a sense of human responsibility are, nevertheless, essential to the birth of such hopes,” writes Director Piotr M.A. Cywiński, Ph.D., in the introduction to the annual report on the work of the Museum. The 70 color pages of the bilingual report contain information on the most important events of 2007.
In 2007, 1.22 million people from every continent visited the Museum, an all-time record for the institution. The Museum became the most-visited cultural institution in Poland.
A great deal of space in the annual report is devoted to the international conference on “Remembrance, Awareness, and Responsibility,” which marked the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Museum, and to the concept for the new main exhibition, which was approved last year by the International Auschwitz Council. “Special emphasis will be placed on showing that, behind the vast numbers of victims, there were individual people with faces and biographies of their own, so that visitors not only feel empathy, but also understand how much humanity lost because places like Auschwitz existed,” we read.
The report also contains detailed information on preservation work, the activities of the specific Museum departments, research, volunteers, films shot at the Museum, and the programs and seminars conducted by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
The report ends with a financial report and a list of the benefactors who supported the Museum. The section titled “Don’t Be Indifferent” presents the Museum’s priority financial priorities, connected with conservation work and the preparation of the new main exhibition and a permanent exhibition of art created in the camp. The Museum only obtains about half of its budget from the Polish government, and must generate income to cover the rest. Contributions from outside Poland cover only about 1% of the budget. These sums are barely enough to cover the operations of the Auschwitz Memorial, a goal of self-evident importance.
“Nothing should be allowed to stand as an obstacle to commemoration and to the education of the increasing numbers of visitors from all over the world,” Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Tomasz Merta said during the ceremonies marking the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. “We are well aware of how important it is to pass on the terrible lesson of Auschwitz-Birkenau to new generations. I would therefore like to express the full support of the government and the ministry of culture for the work of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and for the projects that its staff are creating and developing. Yours is a particularly important mission. You are the custodians of a painful memory. This is indeed a great, exceptional responsibility,” he said.
