News
Remembrance, Awareness, Responsibility—A New Museum Publication
The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has published the proceedings of the international conference on Remembrance, Awareness and Responsibility, held last year on the 60th anniversary of the opening of the State Museum at the site of the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Former prisoners and leading international authorities on Holocaust research, genocide, and totalitarianism and its consequences attended. The sessions were a series of reflections on issues relevant to the future work of the Museum in the light of the challenges and threats facing the contemporary world. Participants included Władysław Bartoszewski, Yehuda Bauer, Zygmunt Bauman, Halina Birenbaum, Israel Gutman, Romani Rose, Elie Wiesel and Stefan Wilkanowicz. This new publication by the ICEAH is a full and faithful transcript of those debates.
Discussions centered on how the story of Auschwitz can be included in contemporary history without creating divisions. The participants shared their experiences and answered questions on how to convey the truth about Auschwitz to succeeding generations, without compromising the character of the Memorial or undermining its authenticity.
The Polish-English publication is divided according to the subjects of the panel discussions: The memory of the eyewitnesses, The memory of the generations, Awareness, Responsibility, The contemporary challenge, The future of the Museum and Memorial, and The future of the Education Center. It also features biographical sketches of the conference participants.
Elie Wiesel said in his remarks that “the buildings may be demolished, but the words remain.” Those words were said during the conference, in the form of reports, presentations, reminiscences, and discussions, and they were heard here at the site of the Nazi German death camp and concentration camp. For Jonathan Weber, the voice of Auschwitz is a voice of exceptional power. That is what made it worthwhile to transcribe that voice and pass it on to others in the form of a book.
The book is available for purchase online at the Museum website.
