News
Preparations for Opening the New Belgian Exhibition
Preparations have begun for a new Belgian permanent exhibition at the Auschwitz I site (Block no. 20). The appropriate Belgian cabinet minister has commissioned the Museum of Deportation and the Resistance Movement in Mechelen (Malines) to design the project, which will be completed in cooperation with the Auschwitz Museum. Belgian soldiers have arrived in Oświęcim and will spend several weeks dismantling the old exhibition.
Jews Deported from Belgium to Auschwitz
Belgian Jews arrived in Auschwitz by way of the collection camp in Malines (Mechelen), which the Nazis opened in 1942. About 25,000 Jews were deported from there between August 1942 and July 1944; only about 1,800 of them survived until liberation.
National Exhibitions
Aside from the so-called general exhibition, the Auschwitz I site also contains other permanent exhibitions, known as national exhibitions, which were originally established by former prisoners from the individual member countries of the International Auschwitz Committee. These exhibitions aim at providing information about the Nazi occupation in countries from which transports were sent to Auschwitz, and presenting the fate of the citizens of those countries. The first exhibition of this type opened in 1960.
During the intervening years, some of these exhibitions have been closed and others have been partially or totally revamped. The following exhibitions are open at present: - “The Suffering, Resistance, and Destruction of the Jews from 1933 to 1945”;
- “The Resistance and Martyrdom of the Polish People from 1939 to 1945”;
- “The Destruction of the European Roma”;
- “The Tragedy of the Slovakian Jews”;
- “Prisoners from Bohemia in Auschwitz”;
- “The Citizen Betrayed: In Memory of Hungarian Holocaust Victims”;
- “Deportees from France to Auschwitz”;
- as well as exhibitions prepared by Austria, Belgium, Italy, Russia, The Netherlands, and Yugoslavia.
