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"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away" exhibition at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is hosting the first Canadian presentation of the exhibition "Auschwitz. Not So Long Ago. Not So Far Away," created by the Museum and the Spanish company Musealia.
The curators of this unique exhibition are international experts: Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, and Dr. Paul Salmons, who worked closely with historians and curators from the Auschwitz Museum Research Center headed by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz.
“This carefully prepared exhibition forces us all to confront this horrifying chapter of human history and challenges us to build a future free from antisemitism, racism, and other ideologies of hatred and dehumanization. Memory is extremely important in shaping this future,” – said the director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
“The memory of the Auschwitz tragedy, on a universal and symbolic level, can serve us as a key not only to understanding how the post-war identity of the world was shaped but also to profound reflection on our contemporary choices. In such a highly unpredictable world in which we live, memory should become an area of our wisdom, experience, and identity. This thought should guide us before the upcoming 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp,” emphasized Director Cywiński.
The exhibition depicts the successive stages of the development of Nazi ideology and describes the transformation of Oświęcim, an ordinary Polish town where Nazi Germany established the largest concentration camp and extermination center during the occupation, where approximately one million Jews and tens of thousands of people of other nationalities were murdered.
The victims of Auschwitz also included Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and other groups persecuted by Nazi ideology, such as people with disabilities, asocials, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. Furthermore, the exhibition includes objects portraying the world of the perpetrators - the SS men who created and managed this largest German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.
“Arriving on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, this groundbreaking exhibition is unprecedented both in scale and scope,” said Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “From a single discarded shoe to the searing testimony of survivors, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. provides a comprehensive look at one of the darkest moments of the 20th century. It is also, in the tradition of ROM, a call to understand the past, so that together we can shape a shared future.”
The visitors at Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto will see several hundred items, mainly from the Auschwitz Memorial Collection. These include personal items belonging to the victims, such as suitcases, glasses and shoes. The exhibition will also include concrete posts forming part of the Auschwitz camp fence; fragments of the original barrack for prisoners in Auschwitz III-Monowitz; a desk and other items belonging to Rudolf Höss, the first and longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz; a gas mask used by the SS; and a lithograph depicting a prisoner's face by Pablo Picasso.
Additionally, the exhibition features individual objects on loan from more than 20 institutions, museums, and private collections worldwide, including Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Wiener Library, and the Buchenwald Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen and Westerbork memorial sites.
“At the heart of this project is the idea of bringing the history of Auschwitz, in all its complexity, to the world,” explained Luis Ferreiro, Director of Musealia. “The exhibition is a powerful opportunity to understand how such a place could have come to exist, how these events could happen, and what it means for us today. It is also a moral urgency to remember those who lost their lives at Auschwitz.”
The exhibition in Canada will be enriched by one of the most extensive educational initiatives in the history of the Royal Ontario Museum. These will include, among others, school classes adapted to the Ontario Holocaust curriculum and a program of open lectures with the participation of experts. Organized school groups from Ontario schools will be able to visit the exhibition free of charge. The ROM's educational partner for this exhibition is the Holocaust Museum in Toronto.
The exhibition “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” will be on display at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto until September 1, 2025. More information about the exhibition and tickets can be found at: https://www.rom.on.ca/whats-on/exhibitions/auschwitz-not-long-ago-not-far-away