News
The third session of the Auschwitz Council
Preparations for the 70th anniversary of liberation of the former Nazi German concentration camp were the most important issue during the session of The International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The Auschwitz Council, appointed by the he minister of culture and art, supervises the statutory activity of the Museum and gives an opinion on plans for its actions.
The session started with a broad report given by Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, Director of the Museum, who discussed the most vital activities of the museum during last year, and presented plans for the nearest future. He discussed, inter alia, the attendance in the Memorial Site, which continues to be quite high, however, there is a noticeable decrease in the number of visitors from Poland, especially groups of young people.
— In 2011 Poles were half of the visitors. In 2013 they represented only 25%. This may be explained by two issues: the first is the reform of the core curriculum, which has almost eliminated the subject of the Holocaust from secondary schools, and also strongly constrained discussing this issue on high school level. The second is the fact that we are a country where there is no national program which would fund trips to Memorial Sites. In the first quarter of 2014, we had more young visitors from the UK than from Poland, said director Cywiński, who added that the Education Centre works on new programs, guided tours, which will be adapted specifically for teachers from Polish high schools
He also informed the Council about their conservation projects, as well as the work of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which creates the Perpetual Capital on maintaining the authenticity of the Memorial Site. The Director spoke also about such activities as publishing, exhibition and education, including the success of a joint project with the Prison Service addressed to inmates.
Additionally the members of the Council took note of the state of the most important investments made by the Museum, including construction of a new visitor’s center, which should start in 2015 and be implemented as part of a wider project of the urban development of Auschwitz Meeting Space (Oświęcimska Przestrzeń Spotkań) in cooperation with the city of Auschwitz. The members of the Council discussed also the idea of creating a new main exhibition, as well as the lack of funding for the creation of offices for the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust in a building called the Old Theatre, which resulted in discontinuation of this project.
During the meeting, the Council also discussed the preparations and plans for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which will take place on 27 January 2015. - It will be the last round anniversary with such large presence of former prisoners and it is very significant to us. Therefore, first of all we want to prove to them that future generations are able to maturely and responsibly pass on the memory of historical events - said director Cywiński. Then we will also announce that we have completed the creation of Perpetual Capital of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which will mean that the material remains of the camp are protected for many, many years - said the director.
Calendar of preparations for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz will be set by events in 2014: the 70th anniversary of the deportation of Jews from Hungary, the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the so-called Zigeunerlager in Birkenau, the 70th anniversary of the deportation to Auschwitz of nearly 13,000 Poles arrested during the Warsaw Uprising, the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz extermination of the Jews from the liquidated ghetto in Łódź, as well as the 70th anniversary of the mutiny of prisoners from the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz.
Composition of the Museum Council (term 2012-2016)
Kazimierz Albin
>Professor Tomasz Gąsowski, Ph.D.
>Piotr Hertig
>Professor Jan Kantyka, Ph.D.
>Professor Edward Kosakowski
>Stanisław Krajewski, Ph.D.
>Andrzej Kunert, Ph.D.
>Rev. Jan Nowak
>Krystyna Oleksy — Chairman
>Anda Rottenberg
Museum Council
The Museum Council is a consultative body appointed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage pursuant to the Act on Museums. In line with the Act, it has 5 – 15 members. Its term lasts 4 years. In the Act, we can also read that the Council: “supervises the fulfillment of the museum’s obligations with respect to the collections and the society and evaluates, pursuant to the yearly report on operations presented by the museum director, operation of the museum and issues opinion on the yearly plan of operation presented by the director.”
From the Act on Museums of November 21, 1996 (Journal of Laws of 1997 No. 5, item 24)
Chapter 2. Organization of Museums
[...]
Art. 11. [The Museum Council]
1. A museum council operates by a state and local government museum whose members are appointed by a competent authority referred to in Art. 5.2 or 5.3 [or an organizer, including the Minister of Culture and National Heritage]
>2. The Museum Council:
>1) supervises the fulfilment, by the museum, of its obligations with respect to the collections and the society, in particular meeting objectives determined in Art. 1,
>2) evaluates, on the basis of a yearly report on operations, the operation of the museum and issues opinion on the yearly plan of operation presented by the director.
