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The grand finale of the Withered Roses contest
The grand finale of the Withered Roses contest was held at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on January 12, 2007, and was accompanied by the premiere of the film The Escapee.
The contest commission reviewed and graded the submissions, marking them above all on their historical value, the comprehensiveness of the accompanying description, and the dedication and involvement of the students who did the work. Four first prizes were awarded ex aequo, followed by three second prizes and one third prize.
The organizers were pleasantly surprised by the degree of interest in the contest on the part of young people, as reflected in the number and quality of the entries. In many cases, the contest turned into an impulse for rediscovering history and better understanding the places where the students lived—and these were, after all, the reasons that the contest was held. Some of the works are regarded as significant by the Museum and will be incorporated among its exhibits or archival documentation.
“Withered Roses was one of those projects that turns out to inspire hope—because this was a contest where young people emerge as the guardians of memory in the local dimension, but also in the human dimension,” said Museum director Piotr M. A. Cywiński. “The results of the contest exceeded our expectations. Many truly fantastic entries came in, where a high level of interest could be seen. This was the first year, but the project will have to be continued. There is a great deal of local memory here, and the Museum must devote itself to this memory.”
“The success of the contest has become a reason to carry on with another edition next year,” said Andrzej Kacorzyk, organizational director of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. “We hope that these young people have caught the history bug. The Museum offered valuable prizes, a digital camera and an MP3 player, which we hope rewards them for the effort and work that they put in.”
Museum deputy director Krystyna Oleksy invited all those who attended the ceremony to come to the opening of the exhibition of entries on January 27, in the hall of the Visitor Services building at the Auschwitz Museum. The opening will be an accompanying event for the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp.
The day’s second important event was the premiere of the film The Escapee, directed by Marek Tomasz Pawłowski, which profiles former Auschwitz prisoner Kazimierz Piechowski. He is the only one who remains alive of the four prisoners who made a bravado escape when, disguised in SS uniforms, they drove out under the noses of the guards in a vehicle stolen from the SS garage.
Although Piechowski was unfortunately unable to attend the premiere because of health reasons, there was no lack of other former Auschwitz prisoners in the Museum’s larger cinema room, which was filled to capacity. An especially moving moment came when the elderly eyewitnesses to history met and posed for photographs with the young entrants and winners of the Withered Roses competition.
