News
Will the European Union Help Conserve the Auschwitz Memorial?
The government has asked the European Union for help in maintaining the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. €120 million is needed for conserving the time-ravaged buildings. In a special letter to the leaders of EU states, Donald Tusk is asking for special funding for the Museum. The reactions are favorable.
Radosław Sikorski promoted the initiative during a Monday meeting of EU foreign ministers.
“This is a moment when we must decide whether we want to preserve the last concentration camp from the times of the last war for future generations,” said Sikorski. He noted that this is particularly important in view of the rising tide of denial “where politicians or religious leaders in some countries are calling the Holocaust into doubt and the generation that remembers those tragic events is dying off.” Sikorski was speaking to other EU foreign ministers. The first reactions from other countries were highly favorable.
The future of the buildings at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp is endangered. Upkeep costs about €5 million per year. Poland cannot afford it alone.
“Politically, this is such an important matter that I do not think the financial crisis could make it difficult to find money for this museum,” said Council of Europe spokesman Jesus Carmona.
More than a million visitors
The Museum’s protectors have decided to make use of the special international nature of the institution to save it. Among the more than 1 million annual visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau, more than 400 thousand are Poles, while the second largest group of visitors are Englishmen, followed by Americans, Germans, Italians, and Jews. Each national group has its own anniversaries and places in the camp that it is particularly eager to visit.
Almost all of them make their way to the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, which are some of the most important material evidence of the crime of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, that evidence may soon undergo dissolution in view of the level of ground water and atmospheric conditions. The ruins of one chamber have been secured this year.
“People from abroad are surprised that the Museum is not financed from international means, because this is a place common to many nations,” Museum guide Jarosław Mensfelt told us. Hence the idea of the Union countries financing the conservation funds. Its initiators are convinced that their plan has a large chance of success, since the camp is a special place for Europe. Among the more than 1.1 million visitors this year were representatives of almost every European nation.
Political Offensive
The issue is important, because if comprehensive conservation of all the buildings and exhibits is not begun in the immediate future, there will soon be nothing to see. The objects in Birkenau are in the worst condition. 45 brick barracks require urgent conservation. “If we do not do this in the next few years, they might collapse, since they are made of very weak materials, and their foundations stand in a marshy meadow that needs draining,” explains Museum director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.
Aside from the barracks in Birkenau, 11 barracks in Auschwitz also require urgent conservation. After restoration, the new main museum exhibition is to be located here. Also endangered is the fate of the former kitchen, where an exhibition of camp art is to be set up.
Donald Tusk sent a letter with a request for support for the special fund to the leaders of states. The idea was suggested by the museum together with the International Auschwitz Council, which reports to the premier. On Monday, MFA chief Radosław Sikorski made representations to Union ministers about the initiative. As he revealed, the Germans and Czechs immediately declared their support. “Brussels immediately joined the initiative. The Secretary of the Council of the EU sent a confidential letter to all European capitals with an appeal for support for our proposal,” Sikorski told us. The minister is convinced of the success of the undertaking.
According to Polish diplomats, Premier Tusk might take up the issue of the financing of the Auschwitz Museum in the course of direct discussions with leaders of the Union during next Sunday’s summit in Brussels.
A hundred thousand exhibits
It seems that one of the best known sites of the Holocaust should not have troubles with upkeep. In the meantime, the reality is completely different. The present annual budget of the Museum amounts to about 24 million zl., of which the culture ministry gives about 11 million, slightly more than 1 million comes from foreign sources, and the museum itself must earn more than 12 million. However, these are not proceeds from the sales of tickets because admission to the camp buildings has been free since the opening of the institution. The museum earns more than 12 million zl. From its own activities, such as the sale of books and fees for parking and guides. “The budget that we have goes almost entirely on current expenses and does not permit us to conserve the memorial” is how director Cywiński explains the essence of the problem.
As the director emphasizes, it will be necessary over the course of the next 20 years to carry out the conservation of all the buildings, and afterwards to repeat the process endlessly. Not at all trivial as well is the number of places and things requiring preservation: there are 155 buildings, 300 ruins, and almost 100 thousand various exhibits, including for example documents, camp equipment, and clothing, on grounds of 200 hectares.
