News

Program Board of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust Meets

April 6, Bielsko-Biała (PAP – Polish Press Agency) – Members of the board of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust (ICEAH) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, appointed last October, convened for the first time on April 5-6.

Board Chairman Stefan Wilkanowicz told journalists that the main item on the agenda was the work of the Center to date and projects that are underway. They also visited the Theatergebäude, or Old Theater building, located just outside the camp wall. During the war, the Germans used it for storing the Zyklon-B gas that they used to kill hundreds of thousands of people, most of them Jews. The ICEAH expects to move into the building soon.

Remodeling work on the building is being held up because the spatial utilization (zoning) plan, already submitted to the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, has not yet been approved.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum deputy director Krystyna Oleksy explained that approval has been blocked by the Museum’s objections to a provision banning all commercial activity on its grounds. “We feel that the following formula should be used: all commercial activity is forbidden with the exception of those activities essential to fulfilling the Museum’s statutory tasks and providing services to visitors,” said Oleksy.

She said that the Museum cannot back down on this point because it must have “absolute control over such commercial activities as guides and publishing.” Otherwise, the Museum could lose half of its annual income. Appropriations from the Polish government budget cover only about 50% of the institution’s needs.

Board deputy chairman Piotr M.A. Cywiński added that the International Auschwitz Council, the specialist consultative body that advises the prime minister, fully supports the Museum’s stance, as do officials in the Polish ministry of culture. “It is completely impossible to agree to a provision that would undermine all the statutory and educational activities carried out in the Museum,” he said.

In the view of Oświęcim mayor Janusz Marszałek, there is no conflict between the zoning provisions as they stand and the Government Oświęcim Strategic Program (GOSP), which envisions the operation at the Museum of a reception center and a dispatch point for guides. Marszałek added that introducing any changes would make it necessary to start the zoning approval process over from the beginning.

The GOSP was approved in 1996, following the conflict over the shopping center then being constructed near the walls of the Auschwitz site by the Maja company of Oświęcim. Marszałek was the head of the company at the time. Among other things, the GOSP envisioned the demarcation and utilization of a buffer zone around the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The Polish council of ministers approved the second part of the GOSP, covering the years 2003-2006, in 2002.

Cywiński told the press that the ICEAH program council was sending a letter on April 7 to Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz asking the government to meet its earlier pledges, and to help in resolving the problems surrounding the premises for the Education Center this year, so that the Center can begin functioning normally.

The council, chaired by Stefan Wilkanowicz, consists of ten people from various countries named by the Polish Minister of Culture on the recommendation of the International Auschwitz Council (IAC).

Former prisoners founded the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust on January 27, 2005, during the ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Minister of Culture formally established the ICEAH in May 2005. The main goal of the ICEAH is to convey the remembrance of the victims of Auschwitz and the Holocaust to younger generations.

The Auschwitz camp was founded by Nazi Germans in 1940, and Auschwitz II-Birkenau two years later. The Auschwitz complex also included a network of sub-camps. The Germans deported at least 1.3 million people to the camp, and killed at least 1.1 million of them, mostly Jews, and also including Poles, Roma, and Soviet POWs. (PAP)