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Auschwitz Memorial Director Named to Remembrance Council
In the name of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski has named new members of the Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom (ROPWiM). They replace members of the Council who died in the tragic crash of the Polish presidential aircraft at Smoleńsk, Russia on April 10. Among the new members is Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
The victims killed on the ill-fated flight to Smoleńsk for anniversary observances at the nearby site of the Katyń Massacre included Czesław Cywiński, Father Andrzej Kwaśnik, President Ryszard Kaczorowski, Tomasz Merta, Stanisław Mikke, Bishop Tadeusz Płoski, and ROPWiM Secretary Andrzej Przewoźnik.
The Council for the Protection of the Remembrance of Combat and Martyrdom is responsible for preserving the memory of the struggles and martyrdom of the Polish people. It also oversees martyrdom sites on Polish soil. Its chairman is Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, who is also chairman of the International Auschwitz Council. The Secretary of the ROPWiM is Dr. Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, who is a member of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Council and a member of the international consultative group on the new main exhibition at the Auschwitz Memorial.
“The Council for the Protection of the Remembrance of Combat and Martyrdom is a very special body. I doubt that there are as many places connected with martyrdom in such dramatic ways and with such a diversity of significance in any other country in Europe,” said Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński. “The best known Memorial in the entire world and humanity's greatest cemetery is Auschwitz. It symbolizes, pars pro toto, the entire history of the Holocaust and the system of Nazi German concentration camps. Today, in the twenty-first century, the experience of remembrance is being born in the space of Auschwitz on a scale not to be found anywhere else. This is the experience that I would like to bring into the deliberations of the Council,” said Cywiński.
Aside from Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, the new members of the Council include Teresa Hernik, Co-Chairwoman of the Council for Activity in the Public Interest; Krystyna Brydowska, President of the Federation of Katyń Families; Stanisław Oleksiak, President of the World Alliance of Home Army Soldiers; and Piotr Żuchowski, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and General Monuments Conservationist.
The Council for the Protection of the Remembrance of Combat and Martyrdom is a public-service body whose members serve four-year terms and are nominated by the President of the Council of Ministers on the advice of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. There are twenty-one members.
The ROPWiM is the only state organ in Poland that initiates and coordinates activity connected with the commemoration of historical events, places, and figures in the history of the combat and martyrdom of the Polish people in Poland and abroad, as well as the combat and martyrdom of other peoples on Polish territory. Its tasks include:
- Overseeing sites of Polish combat and martyrdom and commemorating the associated facts, events, and figures.
- Overseeing Polish war graves and cemeteries and war cemeteries of other nationalities on Polish soil.
- Playing an inspirational role and cooperating in the organization of observances, ceremonies, publishing and exhibition initiatives, and raising the public profile of places, events, and historical figures connected with combats and martyrdom.
- Evaluating the condition of and, in regard to locations abroad, organizing and overseeing the preservation of sites and permanent objects in the Polish national memory, especially cemeteries, war graves, and cemeteries of the victims of totalitarian systems.
- Performing an advisory and supervisory function in regard to museums and memorial sites created at the locations of former German concentration camps and extermination centers.
Based on: www.radaopwim.gov.pl
