News
XIII session of the International Auschwitz Council
During a session in Warsaw on December 5, 2006, the International Auschwitz Council approved plans submitted by the new director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Piotr M. A. Cywiński. The Council unanimously passed a resolution expressing its satisfaction at the idea of creating a new main exhibition at the Museum, in the last row of buildings at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp site, while also maintaining and preserving the original camp relics. Details of the changes will be discussed with both the Council and other groups and institutions in Poland and abroad.
The Council passed a resolution to "condemn any attempts at denying the Holocaust, the plans by the Nazi Germans to murder all the European Jews. This has been, and must continue to be a warning to all people. In this context, the Council, whose members include former Auschwitz-Birkenau prisoners, Christians and Jews, expresses its profound unease at statements by the president of Iran."
The Council also considered the proposal by the authorities of the City of Oświęcim to locate the Mound of Remembrance and Reconciliation on ulica Leszczyńska, directly adjacent to the Auschwitz I Stammlager site. After reviewing a detailed report and discussing the matter, the Council decided to express a negative opinion on this location, while noting at the same time that it continues to support the idea of the Mound of Remembrance and Reconciliation.
The final item on the agenda was the continuation of essential work to secure the ruins of gas chambers and crematoria II and III in Birkenau. The Council approved the preservation option suggested by the Museum, which will stop ground subsidence and isolate the ruin from the ground water without reconstructing any of the elements of the gas chambers and crematoria.
The International Auschwitz Council
The Council was created by the prime minister of the Polish Republic in 2000 and is an advisory-consultative organ reporting to the President of the Council of Ministers on the preservation and use of the grounds at the site of the Auschwitz Nazi death camp and other Holocaust Memorials.
The members of the Council include recognized figures and authorities in the field of the history of the Second World War, the concentration camps, and the Holocaust. The Council supports the work of the Museum. Its present chairman is Professor Władysław Bartoszewski.
The new Council is the successor to the International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, which was set up by the minister of culture and art in 1990. The activities of the earlier council were limited to matters connected exclusively with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
International Auschwitz Council: Yes to the Remembrance Mound, But Not Next to the Auschwitz I Site
Dec. 7, Oświęcim (PAP) – Members of the International Auschwitz Council (IAC) refused to endorse a proposal by the Oświęcim city government to locate the Mound of Remembrance and Reconciliation directly adjacent to the site of the Auschwitz I German camp, the IAC wrote in a communiqué sent to PAP on Thursday, following an IAC session. The Council nevertheless insisted that it still supports the idea of building the mound.
Council secretary Marek Zając said that the decision came at the end of a discussion of a detailed report on the Mound by the Mound of Remembrance and Reconciliation Location Commission, made up of members of the IAC.
The report says that locating the Mound immediately adjacent to the site of the camp is unacceptable because, as high as a 12-storey building, it would radically change the landscape and loom over the Auschwitz site. The idea of the location is also unclear. Originally, the Mound was supposed to be a connecting element along the route from Auschwitz I to Birkenau. The location now proposed is between the gravel pit, the wall of Auschwitz I, and the former SS kitchen. There is also a need for a geological study of the impact that such a large structure would have on the surroundings.
Bogdan Wasztyl, spokesman for the Christian Auschwitz Families Association, which is promoting the construction of the Mound, told PAP that he is puzzled by the views expressed in the communiqué, which he characterized as failing to take a constructive approach. Wasztyl said that Oświęcim mayor Janusz Marszałek had proposed to the IAC in July that the Mound be located between 20 and 100 meters from the Auschwitz I site. At the time, Marszałek said that he requested that alternatives be suggested if the proposed location was unacceptable.
In its communiqué, the IAC did not suggest any alternative location. The report prepared by the Mound of Remembrance and Reconciliation Location Commission did, however, mention other proposed locations, at least three of which have been suggested in public debates and discussions among experts.
They envision locating the Mound on the grounds of Auschwitz II-Birkenau (rejected), near the so-called Altejudenrampe, between the Auschwitz I and Birkenau sites—the suggestion with the most going for it—or the inclusion of the Mound in the Park of the Reconciliation of the Nations—Gardens of Europe, which is planned for the valley of the Soła River.
The Mound is the brainchild of artist Józef Szajna and the proposal dates from the mid-1990s. The IAC endorsed the idea in 2002. At the time, the Council said that the Mound should stand near the railroad siding known as the Altenjudenrampe, about halfway between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Roma, Jewish, and Christian groups expressed their approval.
The stone mound, a clipped cone, would stand about 30 meters high and be surmounted by Professor Szajna's sculpture Passage 2005, reached by paths leading up the sides of the mound. An eternal flame would burn in a rotunda inside the Mound. The idea of the Mound is supranational and supradenominational...
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