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Prof. Piotr Gliński handed out nominations to members of the Council of the ICEAH

The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has a new Council. The nominations to the international group of experts was presented at the first meeting of the new Council by Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland Prof. Piotr Gliński.

 

The Council of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust is composed of the following members:

• Dr. Vojtěch Blodig, Deputy Director of the Terezín Memorial
• Dr. Wolf Kaiser, former Director of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin
• Prof. Danuta Konieczka-Śliwińska, Deputy Director of the History Teaching Institute of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
• Prof. Marek Kucia of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow
• Olivier Lalieu from Memorial de la Shoah in Paris
• Dr. Piotr Paziński, writer, editor-in-Chief of the monthly "Midrash", 
• Karen Pollock, Director of the Holocaust Educational Trust
• Dr. Irina Shcherbakova of the Memorial Society in Moscow
• Jacek Stawiski, head of the editorial board of the World in the television channel TVN24 Biznes i Świat (Business and the World)
• Prof. Dariusz Stola, Director of the POLIN Museum and member of the International Auschwitz Council

Prof. Marek Kucia and Dr. Vojtěch Blodig have been appointed chairperson and deputy chairperson of the ICEAH Council respectively.

‘The Polish government attaches exceptional importance to historical truth and shows great appreciation to people who, through their activities strive to promote it, referring to members of the ICEAH Council, as well as the staff of the Centre, Museum, and all those involved with the idea of speaking the truth about our history, and this great crime, which undoubtedly the Holocaust was as well as the crimes of totalitarianisms’ – said the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Prof. Piotr Gliński during the meeting of the ICEAH Council.

‘No place in the world is more significant and appropriate to remember. To recall how low man, culture, society, and civilization can decline. There is no place more appropriate to ask questions about why this happened and why this is still going on in our world. There is no place more appropriate to ask questions about our choices, values in the contemporary world, about how to choose, how to defend ourselves against insane ideologies, how to understand freedom and whether there is a canon of universal values; the most important, which gives hope that we can build upon,’ stressed the Deputy Prime Minister.

‘This is the best place to search for these answers, to send a message into the world that good answers, although very difficult to find and sometimes even hard to accept, after all exist. This is the best place to educate about the obligations and choices of man. This is how I see the significance of the existence of the International Center for education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. This Center, which you have created, which you elevate and develop. Such is the idea behind the functioning of the Council of this Center, which is to protect its idea of dialogue and search for answers to the most important contemporary questions of humanity,’ added Prof. Gliński. He also assured of the full support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland for both the project of the new main exhibition of Auschwitz Memorial, and the adaptation of the building of so-called Old Theater as the seat of the ICEAH.

‘Now that the authenticity of the Memorial Site has been preserved – thanks to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, we will focus on further development of educational programmes and the creation of necessary infrastructure for education,’ said the director of the Auschwitz Museum Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński. ‘The biggest and most important investments for the coming years include among others, the creation of a new main exhibition, adaptation of the so-called Old Theater at the headquarters of the ICEAH and the construction of a new Visitors’ Service Center. These projects will definitely affect the quality of the Museum’s educational work, in an era in which the last witnesses are passing away and we are observing a continuous increase in the number of visitors’, he added.

‘A multi-annual investment in education is our greatest challenge; however, challenges await us soon. They are linked to the visit in July and August of hundreds of thousands of participants of the World Youth Day. The creation of a safe, but above all valuable passage through Auschwitz and Birkenau for such a vast number of people to experience the authenticity of the Memorial will be a difficult and responsible task. In 2016, we will also commemorate the 75th anniversary of the displacement of the Polish civilian population by the Germans in connection with the construction of the Birkenau camp, and remember the fate of Soviet POWs, whose 75th anniversary of the deportations to Auschwitz also falls this year,’ said the Director of the ICEAH, Andrzej Kacorzyk.

During the first day of the session, the members of the ICEAH Council were briefed on the most important areas of activities of the Center. It includes among others, the education of hundreds of thousands of visitors to the authentic sites of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, organisation of educational projects for students, teachers or educators, exhibition activities, online education and volunteerism. The key issues concerning the educational mission of the Museum of Auschwitz were also discussed.

Deputy Prime minister, Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Piotr Gliński, who was a guest of the first session of the new ICEAH Council also visited the Memorial and the Museum of Auschwitz. 

He saw a part of the Museum exposition, among others, Block 4 dedicated to the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz perpetrated by Germans, Block 5, where personal items stolen from the victims are displayed, as well as the crematorium and the gas chamber at the former Auschwitz I camp. Deputy Prime Minister Gliński placed a candle at the Wall of Death, in the courtyard of Block 11 where Germans carried out execution by shooting, thus paying respect to all the victims of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

Prof. Piotr Gliński also visited the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. He saw among others, the railway ramp, where the Germans conducted the screening of the Jews deported to the camp, as well as newly arrived prisoners, the ruins of the gas chambers and Crematorium II.

The Deputy Prime Minister also had the opportunity to see the conservation studio of the Auschwitz Museum, Block 2, the interior of which has remained intact since the liberation of the camp, and which was subjected to thorough maintenance work a few years ago as well the building of the so-called Old Theatre, future seat of the ICEAH.

The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust was founded in 2005, and it is an integral part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. It deals with the teaching of the history of the Holocaust and the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. It teaches about the tragic fate of Jews, Poles, the Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and the fate of all other groups detained and murdered in Auschwitz.

The Education Centre conducts activities directed at school youth, teachers and educators, as well as for various professional groups, including the socially "excluded" groups. It organizes among others, study visits for young people, conferences, educational projects, training, studies, exhibitions, and provides material for self-education via the Internet.

The Auschwitz context allows one to look at the challenges of the contemporary world. What is the individual in relation to the authorities? What are human rights? How do you recognize the first symptoms of their limitation? What can man conceive in the face of totalitarianism? - These are just a few of the several questions that hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Auschwitz Memorial ask themselves every year. Educators at the Memorial Site help to find answers to these questions.