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Teachers on both sides of the barbed wire
For the Polish Teachers National Day of Rememberance and Peace on 27 April, a conference entitled “Teachers on both sides of the barbed wire” took place at the Center for Dialogue and prayer in Oświęcim. Its organizers were the International Center for Education about Auschwtiz and the Holocaust and the Polish Teachers’ Union.
The conference that took place 26 April, had around 100 participants – teachers from all over Poland. The educators attended a lecture by Dr. Franciszek Piper about Polish intellectuals in Auschwitz. Next, Dr. Jacek Lachendro presented the participants a general picture of the teachers imprisoned in Auschwitz as well as teachers who brought help to the prisoners of the concentration camp.
The next day, at the site of the former camp Auschwitz, the March of Silence took place; leading from the main gate to the Death Wall, Block 11 and Block 15. The teachers laid flowers and lit candles at the Death Wall and in the cellar of Block 11, in the cell where Saint Maximilian Kolbe and Marian Batko, a teacher from Chrozow, were murdered. The 69th anniversary of his death is in 2010.
Teachers Day of Remembrance and Peace
In 1985, the leadership of the Polish Teachers Union chose the 27th of April as the Polish Teachers Day of Remembrance and Peace. The main part of the commemoration takes place annually at the Auschwitz Museum. The teachers pay tribute those who were murdered and killed in death camps, ghettos, gulags as well as other places of punishment and mass execution. Commemorating the Teachers Day of Remembrance and Peace are teachers from all around Poland, senators, students, parents, scouts, representatives of teachers unions from many countries as well as representatives of state and local authorities.
The first commemoration of the “Teachers Day of Remembrance and Peace” took place on 27 April 1985. (za: http://www.znpokreg.wlodzi.com/)
