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Educating inmates about Auschwitz
The educational program for prisoners incarcerated in Małopolska correctional institutions is gathering pace. The aim of establishing the joint program with Auschwitz museum and the regional prison service is to develop appropriate moral and social attitudes through education of what Auschwitz was. It is the hope of the project’s authors that the project will be helpful in rehabilitation of inmates.
After the first stage, during which Museum staff trained prison educators, they work in cooperation to educate inmates about the history of those who were imprisoned in Auschwitz.
Extremely helpful in this education is a new traveling exhibition that was created by the Museum about the history of Auschwitz, which was first presented at the prison in Tarnów. It was from the Tarnów prison that the Germans brought the first of 728 Polish political prisoners Auschwitz.
‘On the anniversary of these tragic events we created an opportunity for our inmates to learn the tragic history of Auschwitz’ Col. Jan Siuda, director of the prison in Tarnów said during the presentation of the exhibition. Taking part in the opening was Kazimierz Zajac, a former Auschwitz prisoner, who was deported to the camp the from Tarnów prison. He spoke about his deportation to the camp, what he experienced, as well as about the penalties and the terror that he and fellow prisoners suffered at the hands of the SS.
The portable poster exhibition, entitled “The Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp Auschwitz”, concisely presents all the important aspects of the history of Auschwitz, as well as the genesis of the Nazi movement and the specific elements of the Nazi terror in occupied Poland.
‘Currently the exhibition is being presented in the second Tarnów penetentary in Tarnów Mościce, and the other nine institutions of the Małopolski Inspectorate of the Prison Service will do the same between September and December 2009’ said Maj. Krystyna Bogacz from the Krakow District Inspectorate of the Prison Service.
The next stage of the project will be one day study visits by inmates to Auschwitz, during which they will visit the site of the former camp as well as take part in lectures and workshops.
