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New Russian exhibition on liberation of the camp at the Auschwitz Memorial
On January 27, the 65th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz camp, in block 14 at the site of the former Auschwitz I camp representatives of Russian Federation with the ministry of education Andrej Fursenko together with the management of the Auschwitz Memorial opened a temporary exhibition dedicated to the liberation of the German Nazi Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. The exhibition was prepared by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.
—This exhibition is a evidence of a breakthrough. In a place of the exhibition, which could not be opened five years ago, we have a new, modern exhibition which is the result of good cooperation. During the six months of very intensive work we could see that we are able to find common ground even on sensitive historical issues. It gives us good prospect for creation, on this foundation, the new permanent Russian exhibition—said the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywinski.
The exhibition covers 212 square meters on the ground floor of block 14 at the Auschwitz I site and tells the story of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945 by soldiers of the 60 Army of the First Ukrainian Front. The exhibition is divided into three parts.
The First Part recounts the moment of liberation by Red Army soldiers. The first to enter the camp were storm detachments of the 106 Rifle Corps under the command of Major Anatoliy Shapiro. The following day, a division of riflemen commanded by Col. Petrenko liberated the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Visitors can see excerpts from the liberation chronicles, battlefield maps, and army staff documents. A separate section tells the story of the soldiers who fought to liberate Auschwitz.
The Second Part is dedicated to the rescue of Auschwitz prisoners and illustrates events immediately after liberation. We see the situation that the soldiers found in the camp. The exhibition also recounts the self-sacrificing efforts by doctors and local civilians who helped save the prisoners. A special installation replicates part of an army field hospital.
The Third Part covers the effort to document the crimes committed in Auschwitz. There are working documents from the Extraordinary State Commission of the USSR, and accounts and memoirs by former prisoners including testimony about genocide, medical experiments, and camp conditions. A major part of this segment of the exhibition is a symbolically bounded-off place for German war criminals at the Nuremberg Trial.
The exhibition is the first component of a permanent Russian exhibition devoted to the story of prisoners from the USSR in Auschwitz, above all Soviet POWs. At least 15 thousand POWs are estimated to have been sent to Auschwitz, only four-fifths of whom were registered and entered in the camp records. The three thousand unregistered POWs were killed shortly after arrival.
The second most numerous group of deportees from the territory of the USSR were about six thousand men, women, and children captured during German-led operations against partisans inthe Minsk and Vitebsk regions of Byelorussia.
The Organizers of the Exhibition
The new Russian national exhibition is organized, under the authority of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 in cooperation with:
- GIM ZSA Republic Museum Center
- The State Archive of the Russian Federation
- The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
- The Russian State Military Archive
- The Military-Medical Museum
- The Holocaust Center and Foundation
- The Russian State Cinematographic Archive
- The Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
The exhibition also draws on the personal archives of Ivan Konev and Sergey Kolpakov, as well as material from the Archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
