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“Tragedy. Valour. Liberation.” New Russian Exhibition at the Auschwitz Memorial.
On the 68th anniversary of the liberation of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz the new Russian exhibition entitled “Tragedy. Valour. Liberation” was officially opened in the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is located in block 14 of Auschwitz I camp, in one of the nine which in October 1941 housed thousands of Soviet prisoners of war.
The ceremony was attended, inter alia, by the Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Sergey Naryshkin, and the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Jerzy Wenderlich, the Ministers of Culture of Russia and Poland, Vladimir Medinsky and Bogdan Zdrojewski, as well as the Director of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow, Vladimir Zabarowsky, and the Director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr Piotr M.A. Cywiński.
“The memory of what the inmates and prisoners of war survived in the concentration camps should be preserved in museums, films, monuments, textbooks, but most of all — in the memory of all of us, in our steadfast and unwavering commitment to the prevention of genocide and other crimes against humanity,” said minister Vladimir Medinski during the opening of the exhibition.
Work on the preparation of the exhibition lasted several years, during which detailed discussions were carried out as to its content and form.
“The creation of a new Russian exhibition was a long process, it is true. This reflects the profound differences in historical memory,” said the Director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński. “Therefore, it was good that the talks went finally well and we succeeded in the opening of the exhibition. I think that if there is an event in our common history that should not divide us, it is the tragedy of victims who suffered and died in Auschwitz,” he added.
The first screen at the opening to the exhibition presents a map of Europe from August 1939, before the outbreak of the war, and in June 1941, prior to the Operation Barbarossa, i.e. before the German invasion of the USSR.
“In preparing the exhibition, more than 2,500 various documentary sources from multiple archives, museums, private Russian collections and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum were taken into account. A considerable part of them is being published for the first time — in display cabinets, on screens, in computer databases,” said Vladimir Zabarowsky, Director of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, before the opening. “The exhibition pays special attention to the tragedy of Soviet prisoners of war. It was they and the Poles who were the first on which, here in Auschwitz, the effects of the Zyklon B gas were tried upon. It was they who were first tattooed, having their names and surnames replaced with numbers,” underlined Director Zabarowsky.
In addition to the theme of the liberation, the new exhibition presents the following topics:
• “The Tragedy of Soviet Prisoners of War,” presenting the policy of the Germany Nazi against Soviet prisoners of war, their fate in various POW camps, most of all in Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, they were the fourth largest group of prisoners, treated by the camp authorities with particular cruelty. From among approximately 15,000 prisoners brought into the camp, at the last roll call in January 1945, only 96 prisoners participated.
• “Occupation Regime,” showing the policies of the German occupants towards the civilian population in the occupied territories of the USSR.
• “The Civilian Population from the Territories of the USSR in Auschwitz.” This section shows the fate of civilians deported from 1942 to Auschwitz, of whom a large number were women and children.
The exhibition closes with photographs of prisoners and drawings by Zinovy Tolkachev, an artist and soldier of the Red Army, created by him after the liberation of the camp. The artist recorded the images, as well as his impressions and experiences, on the original forms of camp documents (due to the lack of paper), including stationery from the commandant, which provides them with additional significance.
The exhibition space has been arranged with the help of both traditional forms, such as charts and installations, as well as by utilising modern multimedia presentations used for the transmission of clips from archival films and documents. What is also important for the exhibition, outside the narrative, is an area designed for education and commemoration.
The first attempt to create a new Russian exhibition at the Auschwitz Museum, which was to replace an exhibition created in Soviet times, took place in 2005. However, this opening did not happen at that time.
Substantive differences arose related to the naming of lands and the people that, as a result of the activities of the USSR ensuing from the arrangements of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, came under the control of the Soviet Union in 1939-1941. This included the lands of the Baltic States, the eastern part of the Republic of Poland and part of Romania, where the population could not be considered as citizens of the Soviet Union, because they did not voluntarily renounce their former citizenship and did not adopt Soviet citizenship by way of asovereign decision. The position of the Museum was supported at the time by the International Auschwitz Council, which was made up of experts from countries such as: England, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, and the United States. Their task was to provide an opinion on the progress of work.
Talks of a new Russian exhibition began again in 2007. At that time, the Polish and Russian parties agreed that such a solution must be found which would not be conflicting, and at the same time, which would reflect the historical facts.
An important breakthrough in work on the creation of a comprehensive Russian exposition was the decision on the creation of the first element, i.e. an exhibition on the subject of "The Liberation of KL Auschwitz,” jointly prepared by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and the Auschwitz Museum. The exhibition was opened in January 2010 and tells about the moment of the liberation of Auschwitz by soldiers of the Red Army, the rescue of the prisoners of Auschwitz, as well as the events that took place immediately after the liberation. The exhibition has now been included in the new exhibition.
The new exhibition is organised by the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 in Moscow, whose director is Vladimir Ivanovich Zabarovsky. The scenario was developed in a close cooperation with the employees of the Auschwitz Museum. The exhibition project and its installation were carried out by the Republican Museum Centre GIM under the direction of Olga Sokolova.
