News

The Gravel Pit Comes Under Museum Control

Małopolska Deputy Governor Jadwiga Nowakowska and Polish Ministry of Culture Undersecretary of State Ryszard Mikliński attended the official transfer to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum of the Gravel Pit grounds including the “Old Theater” building.

Museum Director Jerzy Wróblewski expressed his satisfaction with the transfer and emphasized the positive attitude of the central government authorities he dealt with throughout the negotiations over the transfer.

There are plans for the Old Theater building to house an International Center for Teaching about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, tasked with conveying knowledge about the history of Auschwitz and the mechanisms that led to the Holocaust and genocide. The Center would offer a wide range of education to teachers and students from Poland and other countries.

Plans for the Center received a positive response when they were presented at the June, 2003 conference in Cracow on The Educational Role of Oświęcim, organized by the Polish ministry of internal and administrative affairs in cooperation with the ministries of foreign affairs, culture, and education and sport, along with provincial authorities and the International Auschwitz Council.

The project obtained a similar positive response during the seventh session of the International Auschwitz Council in Warsaw on November 3-4, 2003, where the Council approved Museum plans and the government decision to operate the Center as part of the Museum.

The Center is a priority in the Second Phase of the Government Strategic Oświęcim Project (GSOP).

The Old Theater Building and the Gravel Pit

Built before 1939, the Old Theatre Building was used for camp storage during the war. A contemplative Discalced Carmelites female religious order used it form 1984 to 1993, leading to protests from some Jewish groups. When the sisters moved out, the War Victims Association leased the building. A cross commemorating Pope John Paul II’s 1979 visit to the camp was erected in the late 1980s in the Gravel Pit adjacent to the building. Hundreds of prisoners were murdered in the Gravel Pit during the war.

When word about the removal of the cross spread in the late 1990s, its self-proclaimed defender, Kazimierz Świtoń, started a campaign that saw over 300 more crosses erected in the pit.

The Polish parliament passed a new law on the protection of Memorial Sites. This law regulated the buffer zone around the Museum. In May 1999, the police removed Świtoń from the Gravel Pit and took all the crosses there, except for the Papal one, to the Franciscan monastery in nearby Harmęże.

The regional court in Oświęcim ruled in 2002 that the Gravel Pit and the Old Theater Building are state property, and evicted the War Victims Association.

The Government Strategic Oświęcim Project

Problems connected with the presence and functioning of the museum in a city with a population of over 40,000 include the unresolved issue of the buffer zone, the international conflicts and controversies over the Carmelite convent in a building adjacent to the Museum, and the “supermarket affair.” The 1996 Oświęcim Program, authored by Museum staff, Oświęcim city and commune officials, and local cultural and educational leaders, attempted to solve these problems.

It was also the basis for the Government Strategic Oświęcim Project, approved by the Polish council of ministers in October 1996, which places the top priority on regulating the buffer zone and modernizing urban transport in Oświęcim.

The GSOP also calls for the “reconstruction and revitalization of the Old Town and the reconstruction and rebuilding of the most interesting landmark buildings,” as well as the founding of an International Congress Center and an International Education Center. These projects are to be funded primarily by the Polish government. Initial funding was to come from the province of Bielsko (since reorganized), the Oświęcim city and commune, the Polish ministries of culture and art and transport and marine, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Victims Memorial Foundation.

The International Auschwitz Council

The minister of culture and art convened the Council in 1990 as the International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Its members include eminent international authorities on the Second World War, the concentration camps, and the Holocaust.

In January 2000, the Polish prime minister proclaimed the International Auschwitz Council in place of the existing Council.

The Council, with a term of office lasting six years, is an advisory and consultative body for the Polish president of the council of ministers. It is also charged with cooperating with the relevant ministries, councils, and local governments and the directors of Holocaust Memorials in the protection of these Memorials and in raising funds for their functioning.