News
New permanent exhibition dedicated to the fate of Poles at KL Auschwitz
On 2 September, a new permanent exhibition dedicated to the fate of Poles in the German Nazi camp Auschwitz was opened in Block 15 on the grounds of the former Auschwitz I camp. It consists of two parts: “Poles in KL Auschwitz” and “In the Shadow of Death – Oświęcim during the German Occupation 1939–1945.”
The exhibition was authored by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Auschwitz Museum Research Center. The designers were the consortium Adventure Sławomir Mazan, Jarema Szandar Sp. J., Koza Nostra Studio sp. z o.o. and Biuro Usług Architektonicznych “Profil” sp. z o.o.
Present at the opening were five Auschwitz Survivors: Barbara Doniecka, Bronisława Horowitz-Karakulska, Ewa Machaj-Antosiewicz, Bogdan Bartnikowski, and Janusz Rudnicki.
“This exhibition, which is extremely valuable, tells the whole story of Poles in Auschwitz. What is most important to me is that it also speaks about the beginnings of this camp, which existed from 1940. The history of the Holocaust is an unimaginable tragedy, but after all, the Holocaust began two years later, while from 1940 Poles were being murdered here, in these very streets, and it lasted until the very last moments of the camp. This exhibition documents our fate,” said Bogdan Bartnikowski.
The project was financed thanks to extraordinary support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, amounting to just over 22.5 million PLN. At the opening, Deputy Minister of Culture Bożena Żelazowska spoke: “A permanent exhibition is an extremely demanding undertaking, something that will remain for many years, something to which those who see it will return. Above all, it is important also for our youth, who are with us today, which gives us great joy.”
She also read a letter addressed to participants of the event by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Marta Cienkowska: “I wish to thank the Museum’s director, Dr. Piotr Cywiński, as well as all the creators of the new exhibition, its curator Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, project coordinator Robert Płaczek, and all staff and volunteers involved in carrying out this endeavor. Thanks to your work, an exhibition has been created that not only commemorates, but also educates. It will serve as an important introduction to the guides’ narrative about the origins of KL Auschwitz, presenting the beginning of the war, the German occupation of Poland, the scale of persecutions, the systematic arrests carried out by the German police, and the unprecedented cruelty that accompanied them. At a time when the last eyewitnesses and Survivors are passing away, the shared responsibility falls on us to protect and preserve memory.”
“This place not only reveals the darkest pages of history, but above all carries a message. Freedom, dignity, and human rights are never given once and for all. We must constantly guard them. We cannot remain indifferent,” the letter reads.
The exhibition, spread over two floors of historic Block 15, complements not only the main exhibition, but also the narrative conducted in the authentic space of the Memorial. It focuses on the fate of Poles in the German Nazi Auschwitz camp. It presents the history of prisoners registered as political prisoners, but also of other groups of Polish citizens deported here – including Polish Jews deported to Auschwitz for extermination.
“National exhibitions created on the grounds of the Memorial are meant primarily to broaden and deepen the history of the fates of people deported from a given country or national group. They are not independent entities detached from context – rather, they function as a complement to the main exhibition and the guides’ narrative. They co-create the exhibitionary introduction to understanding the historical post-camp space. Because of both content and location, the exhibition dedicated to the history of Poles in KL Auschwitz is a very good introduction before entering the authentic grounds and hearing the story told by guides,” emphasized Robert Płaczek, who coordinated the work on the exhibition.
In the introduction to the exhibition catalog, Museum Director Dr. Piotr Cywiński wrote: “If during the pre-war period the Oświęcim region lay almost on the southwestern border of Poland, then the Auschwitz camp—although built on territory incorporated into Germany—lies at the very heart of the Polish experience of the Second World War.”
Of the approximately 1.3 million people deported to KL Auschwitz, the largest group were Polish citizens – mainly Jews, victims of Hitler’s racist policies, and Poles who were sent to the camp as a result of repressive actions carried out by the German authorities. The first prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz in June 1940 were Poles – political prisoners, and from the spring of 1942, large transports of Polish Jews began arriving. In the spring of 1943, Roma from Silesia, Greater Poland, and the Białystok region were also deported.
In addition, transports included people who had fled forced labor, including Ukrainians and Belarusians – Polish citizens from the eastern provinces of the Second Republic. In total, around 450,000 people were deported.
“After the war, Auschwitz became a symbol of collective martyrdom for Poles, unprecedented in the thousand-year history of the Polish state. The former camp terrain, which became the Memorial, served as a reminder to subsequent generations of a time when the Polish nation suffered unimaginable losses, with both its material existence and its very survival under threat. For Polish Jews, the period of German occupation meant the near-total annihilation of their families, with only a few individuals surviving. For many Polish families, Auschwitz meant the loss of at least one loved one,” wrote Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz in the introduction to the exhibition catalog.
The second part of the exhibition concerns the history of Oświęcim during the Second World War – the realities of occupation, expulsions, the activity of the IG Farbenindustrie company, German plans for reconstruction of the town, as well as the help given to Auschwitz prisoners, often at the risk of life, by Poles living near the so-called “camp interest zone” – a 40 square kilometer area isolating the camp from the outside world.
As Director Cywiński wrote: “The history of Auschwitz is also a history of the Oświęcim region, of expulsions, the influx of thousands of German colonizers, the Germanization of public space, and the particular harassment in the zone adjacent to the camp. Against this complex background, there also appear the stories of solo or coordinated attempts to come to the aid of prisoners. The fates of the people living “in the shadow of the camp,” seldom told and still unfamiliar to a wider audience, supplement the narrative of this exhibition.”
As the exhibition’s author emphasized, the history of Auschwitz here is shown in a much broader context of Nazi German policy, which is evident above all at the beginning of the exhibition.
“It is impossible to tell the history of Polish prisoners of Auschwitz without at least indicating the general causes of Nazi Germany’s aggression in September 1939. In the intentions of the highest authorities of the Third Reich, the war against Poland, while serving primarily to fulfill Adolf Hitler’s great-power, colonial ambitions, also bore the marks of an ideological crusade directed against its inhabitants, considered to belong to allegedly inferior races. This was directed primarily against Jews, but also against Poles. Contrary to the impressions of some world media, the German attack was not merely the result of a border dispute that could have ended with the loss of a few border towns or provinces by the defeated country. As Hitler repeatedly emphasized, Poland had to be completely annihilated,” wrote Piotr Setkiewicz.
