NEW HEADQUARTERS FOR THE EDUCATION CENTER

PRESERVING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE MEMORIAL

AN INTERVIEW WITH TERESA ŚWIEBOCKA

AMERICAN CADETS IN POLAND

no. 7 July 2009

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EDITORIAL BOARD:Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine

Editor:Paweł SawickiEditorial secretary: Agnieszka JuskowiakEditorial board:Bartosz Bartyzel Wiktor BoberekJarek MensfeltJadwiga Pinderska-LechLeszek SzusterArtur SzyndlerColumnist: Mirosław GanobisDesign and layout:Agnieszka Matuła, Grafi konTranslations: William BrandProofreading:Beata KłosCover:Projekt MCEAH – GRUPA 5Photographer:Tomasz Mól

PUBLISHER:

Auschwitz-BirkenauState Museum

www.auschwitz.org.pl

PARTNERS:

Jewish Center

www.ajcf.pl

Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation

www.centrum-dialogu.oswiecim.pl

International Youth Meeting Center

www.mdsm.pl

IN COOPERATION WITH:

Kasztelania

www.kasztelania.pl

State HigherVocational School in Oświęcim

www.pwsz-oswiecim.pl

Editorial address:„Oś – Oświęcim, Ludzie, Historia, Kultura”Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenauul. Więźniów Oświęcimia 2032-603 Oświęcime-mail: os@auschwitz.org.pl

A GALLERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY

EDITORIALIn the July issue of Oś, we assign a great deal of space to the question of the conservation of the Auschwitz Memorial. Many meetings over the last month were devoted to this issue. The International Auschwitz Council, a consultative body to the Prime Minister of the Polish Republic, met to consider the protection and use of the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi camp, and also of other Holocaust Memorials. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Board of Trustees also met for the fi rst time. The main task of the Foundation is to raise funds for an overall, multi-year plan for the conservation of the Memo-rial.We especially recommend an interview with Teresa Świebocka, the deputy director of the Museum who recently

retired after working here for 40 years. “I can declare that forty years ago I made the right decision, and they were not lost years. I made a good decision, even though I was very reluctant. This is a mission, a responsibility. It is good when you feel that you are doing some-thing important, and not only signing and shuffl ing papers. People leave here after two or three years or stay on for the rest of their lives,” she says.In this issue of Oś, we also write about the “Old Theater” building. After fi ve years of efforts, it is fi nally possible to locate the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust there. This will make it pos-sible for the Museum to carry out its educational work in modern condi-tions, and more people will be able to

benefi t from the Center’s broad range of programs. This should have a carry-over effect on a rise in the number of groups who stay in Oświęcim longer than a visit to the Museum lasting a few hours. In the July issue of Oś, you will also fi nd articles about visits to Poland by American cadets as part of a program at the Jewish Center, about a seminar at the International Youth Meeting Center on the migration and integra-tion of Poles in the 20th century, about the open house organized there by the Oświęcim Youth House of Culture, and about a stay at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer by a meditation group.

Paweł SawickiEditor-in-chief

os@auschwitz.org.pl

In describing the cultural desert that was Oświęcim in the 1950s, with the exception of the movies and the circus, I failed to mention two annual reli-gious-artistic-entertainment events, the nativity play and the passion play at the Salesian Institute.The plays were held in the theater at the Institute, where there was a large stage and a place for the orchestra. It was in the basement on the Jagiełły street side of the building. With excel-lent stage design, the plays had casts of young people and adults who later dis-tinguished themselves in other fi elds in the life of the town. The special ef-fects included hell fi re that rose from

beneath the stage during King Herod’s scene. There was only one limitation: the cast was male-only!The most moving moment in the nativ-ity play came in the adoration scene, when those who knelt before the infant Jesus included not only the traditional highlanders, Cracovians, and Three Kings, but also an insurgent from the Warsaw Uprising and a concentra-tion-camp inmate in a striped uniform. A moving accent in the passion play was the presentation of Calvary amidst thunder and lightning, followed by the triumph of the resurrection. The residents of the town knew the two plays practically by heart, but neverthe-

less felt themselves obliged to attend each year. In fact, people came from all over Silesia in buses and passenger-car-rying trucks.At the height of Stalinism, this wing of the Institute was taken away from the Salesian fathers and assigned to a nursing school. The plays were banned. There was a modest, covert at-tempt at reviving them in the Institute dining room and the corridor outside, but it wasn’t the same. Now, the build-ing has returned to its owners, but the theater has not been reactivated. All that remains is a small stage in the new part of the church.

Andrzej Winogrodzki

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Silesian Institute. Photograph from Mirosław Ganobis’s collection “A Gallery of the 20th Century”

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Auschwitz-Birkenau State MuseumOś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009

EDUCATION CENTER IN NEW HEADQUARTERS

After almost five years of efforts, it will be possible to set up the headquarters of the Internation-al Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust in the building known as the “Old Theater.” From the moment in 2005 when it was called into existence by the Polish government, at

the urging of former prisoners, the ICEAH has been organizing educational programs at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial to make it possible for young people to learn in depth about the tragic history of this place.

Already, there is a range of activities directed to school and university stu-dents, and teachers and faculty, including courses, seminars, conferences, study residencies, lectures, and multimedia presenta-tions. In 2008 alone, the ICEAH organized semi-nars, thematic conferences, and educational programs that included 400 lectures and workshops, in which a total of almost 7 thousand people participated. Until now, the lack of lec-ture rooms and the ap-propriate infrastructure have made it impossible to take full advantage of the rich educational offerings of the ICEAH. “In recent years, we have observed a rise in the need for in-depth, specialist education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Thanks to the

new headquarters for the Center, it will be possible to reach far more people with knowledge about the Holocaust, and the teach-ing can finally take place in conditions appropriate to the challenges of educa-tion in the 21st century,” said Krystyna Oleksy, di-rector of the ICEAH. The new headquarters in-clude a state-of-the–art au-ditorium, multimedia lec-ture rooms, display space, a reading room, and work-stations for independent research and study. The International Cent-er for Education about Auschwitz and the Holo-caust is one of the most important projects at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. “Today, when the last former prisoners are departing, only the development of education

offers hope that we will understand the signifi-cance of the experience of Auschwitz for all human-ity. The world is different today, and what we have is worth protecting and caring for. We all therefore need the special prism and reference point of the hu-man fate in the face of the Nazi German project of the Third Reich,” said Mu-seum Director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński. The adaptation of the Old Theater building could have begun several years ago. It was delayed, how-ever, by the lack of a local zoning ordinance, which has still not been issued. None of the versions pre-sented by the mayor was acceptable to the institu-tions responsible for the interests of the Memorial. The procedural delays led

to the loss of a 2 million zlo-ty donation that the Amer-ican Grand Circle Founda-tion of Boston wanted to make to help pay for the new ICEAH premises. The work on transforming the Old Theater into a facility so badly needed for educa-tional work has only now been made possible by the designation of the project as “for the public good.”Also the International Auschwitz Council urged the Government of the Re-public of Poland to grant the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum the required financial support to begin and carry out the construc-tion and investment in the building. According to Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage To-masz Merta, there is a high chance for such support. “This great news, that we

have new headquarters for the ICEAH will probably follow a fast reaction which will make opening of real activities for the Center possible. Auschwitz-Birk-enau Museum is run by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the minister is responsible for this institution. That is why apart from regular financing that is necessary for regular activities of the Museum it is essential for us to support realization of important projects which set the meaning of its work for the future ,” said minis-ter Merta.For Oświęcim residents, the new Center will mean not only new jobs, but above all a rise in the number of large groups that stay for periods longer than a visit of a few hours.

Paweł Sawicki

Future headquarters of the ICEAH

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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

June was the month where a lot was said about the need to maintain and protect the authenticity of Auschwitz Me-morial. This topic was on the agenda of the International Auschwitz Council Meeting and a special European Union summit in Prague that was devoted to the problem of property plundered during the Holocaust and World War II.

Also in June members of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Board of Trustees met for the fi rst time. The main goal for the foundation is to gather fi nances for preservation of Auschwitz Memorial.

PROTECT HERITAGE OF THE VICTIMSINTERNATIONAL DEBATE ON PRESERVING

THE AUTHENTICITY OF AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL

Oświęcim—InternationalAuschwitz CouncilThe International Auschwitz Council convened by the Prime Minister of the Repub-lic of Poland was in session in Oświęcim on June 15-16, 2009. Prof. Władysław Bartoszew-ski chaired the session. The Council expressed its sat-isfaction at news of the ruling on the localization of the in-vestment for the public good in the form of the remodeling of the so-called Old Theater for the International Center for Education about Ausch-witz and the Holocaust. It urged the Government of the Republic of Poland to grant the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum the required fi nan-cial support to begin and car-ry out the construction and investment in the building.The members of the Coun-cil returned once again to the issue of the seven Roma portraits painted by Dina Gottlieb-Babbitt. The Coun-cil emphatically reiterated its previous determination that the transfer of the originals to Mrs. Gottlieb-Babbitt, as she demands, is out of the ques-tion.Members of the Council stressed that, in this and all similar cases, the overriding consideration is the authen-ticity and completeness of the Memorial, with all its mov-able and non-movable prop-erty. The portraits in question were painted in the camp, on orders from Dr. Josef Mengele, as documentation for his pseudoscientifi c rac-ist research. Today, they are among the very few remain-

ing vestiges of the murdered Roma, and cannot be replaced by any copies. Respect for this principle makes it possible to avoid any sort of doubts that could be cynically exploited in the future by deniers. It must be stressed once again that the International Ausch-witz Council has already ex-pressed its position on these paintings. On a motion by Rabbi Andrew Baker, the is-sue was voted on once again.Members of the Council ac-quainted themselves with the report by the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, on the work of the Museum in the months since the last session, and the pro-cedures for establishing the Auschwitz-Birkenau Founda-tion, the role of which will be to service the Perpetual Fund for the conservation of the authenticity of the Memorial. Members of the Council at-tached great hope to the crea-tion of the Foundation and ex-pressed their expectation that support from many countries will make it possible to estab-lish the Fund quickly.Tomasz Merta, Deputy Min-ister of Culture and National Heritage, was a guest at the meeting and presented in-formation about new legisla-tion on Memorial Sites. The legislation, which will soon be submitted to parliament, makes a precise defi nition of such concepts as “com-memoration” and “Memorial Site.” Deputy Minister Merta expressed his conviction that the new legislation will come into force on January 1, 2010.

Other guests at the Council session were the heads of in-stitutions located at the sites of other death camps: Lech Stefaniak (Kulmhof), Marek Bem (Sobibor), and Edward Kopówka (Treblinka), who informed the Council about the state of affairs at those three sites.The next session of the Inter-national Auschwitz Council is scheduled for November 17, 2009, in Warsaw.

Warsaw—The Auschwitz--Birkenau Foundation Board of Trustees MeetingThe 14-member Board of Trustees of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation con-vened for the fi rst time at the Chancellery of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers in Warsaw on June 17.The founder, Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski, was unani-mously elected chairman of the Foundation Board. “Our work is voluntary,” he said. “We do not profi t in any way. We all share an identical motivation—to ensure that the Memorial Institute will always be able to function, because this is a matter of preserving the world’s larg-est cemetery without graves. Over a million people visit Auschwitz each year, people from all over the world. This places us under an obliga-tion.”“Since 1947,” Prof. Bartosze-wski continued, “Poland has done as much as it could. We have collected material and accounts, amassed docu-mentation, and preserved the buildings to the degree

that we could afford to do so. Now, we are in the European family. This is a part of the history of Europe, not only of Poland and not only of the Jewish people. We expect that Europe will also treat it as a part of its history.”

The mission of the Founda-tion is to raise €120 million for the Perpetual Fund, and the annual interest of €4 to €5 mil-lion will make it possible to plan and systematically carry out the essential conservation work. Thus, for the fi rst time

For me, the International Auschwitz Council is incredibly helpful in administering the Memorial. This is a body of outstanding specialists from many countries who are re-spected internationally not only regarding to the topic of Auschwitz but also to other memorials. One of the items on the agenda during this session of the Council was the crea-tion of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which will be a tool fi nancing the preservation of the Auschwitz Memo-rial. The Council accepted this project very positively and warmly. I hope that the support given by the members of the Council in their countries will give fruits in near future.

Deliberations of this Council were specifi cally important and effi cient. I think that the initiative that has been taken by Prof. Bartoszewski, and the director Piotr Cywiński, and others to establish this kind of international and European foundation is outstanding and of signifi cant importance. I think that the idea to have money that will be allocated to the purpose of preservation in the coming years is very important. If we want to protect the authenticity of all parts of the former camp and all its remains, and it should be pre-served for future generations. And for this sake we should establish an international effort so that we could tell young people all around the world the truth about the history and signifi cance of remembrance about Auschwitz .

It is essential to have a forum, where diffi cult questions can be discussed in an open and free way, where people who have got genuine concerns, genuine questions, genu-ine anxieties about this very complicated place can discuss them in a relaxed and yet dignifi ed way to reach proper conclusions and the Council was founded for that purpose. The biggest challenges today are how Auschwitz can move successfully into the 21st century with enough money, how to maintain a dignifi ed and proper memorial, suitable to keep the memory of what happened here for the next gen-erations, how to conserve all the movable and immovable objects in the museum and how to prepare new exhibitions which will meet new concerns of the 21st century. But the Museum has got a wonderful director, wonderful staff, very committed and loyal people to work here, and I have every confi dence they will meet all those challenges.

International Auschwitz Council session in Oświęcim

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DR. PIOTR M. A. CYWIŃSKI, DIRECTOR OF THE AUSCHWITZ-

-BIRKENAU STATE MUSEUM

AVNER SHALEV, CHAIRMAN OF THE DIRECTORATE OF THE YAD VASHEM INSTITUTE

IN JERUSALEM

PROF. JONATHAN WEBBER, OXFORD UNIVERSITY

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in its history, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial will have a real chance to set up a per-manent, overall, long-term conservation program that makes it possible to safeguard the remains of the camp for future generations.Rafał Pióro, the deputy direc-tor of the Museum and dep-uty chairman of the Board of Directors, informed the trus-tees about the most urgent conservation tasks facing the Auschwitz Memorial.“The most important prob-lem to be solved is, of course, the scale of the whole under-taking, because we are talking about very extensive grounds and an enormous number of buildings. We will base our decisions above all on the condition of the structures. I would like to draw special attention to the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau. That is where we have the greatest number of buildings that are authentic vestiges of history. At this moment, one of our most important challenges is to control the action of the ground water, which is hav-ing a detrimental effect on the condition of 45 brick barracks at the site of the women’s camp. We will have to use all available expertise in order to carry out this task with-out deforming the historical landscape of the site, since the overriding value for us is the preservation of authenticity,” Pióro explained.“In terms of the priorities at the Auschwitz I site,” he add-ed, “we must remember that, aside from the buildings and ruins, the grounds of the Me-morial also contain movable items and archives, which are in fairly comfortable shape at the moment, because we are able to keep them under opti-mal conditions in the storage areas.”The session also considered the work of the Foundation so far, and the response to the letter that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sent to the leaders of numerous countries, asking them to support the Foundation. The fi rst binding commitment came from the German gov-ernment, which pledged €1

million in immediate fund-ing, with a much larger sum to follow next year.“Jürgen Rüttgers, prime min-ister of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, who is also a member of the Foun-dation Board of Trustees, an-nounced the coordination of aid from the German states, for which I am very grateful, because it demonstrates a real will to help on the part of Ger-man society,” said Cywiński. “Positive declarations have come in from various coun-tries, and continue to come in. A great deal will depend on the coming year. I hope that we will be able to begin the fi rst projects within three years. The later we begin, the more expensive and risky the conservation work,” he added.“I would like to thank you for the trust that allows me, as a German citizen, to sit down in such company,” said Jür-gen Rüttgers. “I think that the work of this Foundation will be effective because it has to do with such an important place. I have three sons, and I follow the way in which they are confronted with the sub-ject of the Holocaust at their schools in Germany. It is hard for them to understand these events. I know from talking with young people that many of them did not understand this history until someone who had been a victim of the Holocaust told them about what happened then. The majority of those responsible are dead, but the responsibil-ity remains. Maintaining the memory of crimes against humanity is especially im-

portant. We need to consider how to pass the history on to the coming generations, and we also need to pass on the task of protecting the memo-ry. As Germans, we are aware of our responsibility, and this is why we are taking part in this task.”

Prague—EU SummitA European Union summit of delegations from 46 coun-ties, including non-members, has been held in Prague as part of the Czech presidency. The conference was devoted to the problem of property plundered during the Holo-caust and World War II. The fi nal declaration, as ap-proved, took particular note of the integrity and authentic-ity of Memorials. The Polish delegation included the di-rector of the Auschwitz-Birk-enau State Museum, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński. In his opening remarks, No-bel Prize winner Elie Wiesel said that “the 20th century will not be remembered for all the technological progress, the trip to the moon, or even for Hiroshima. If it is remem-bered at all, it will be for Auschwitz.”The delegations from 46 countries met in order to reach a common position on the subject of property sto-len from victims of the Third Reich. The fi nal declaration acknowledges the need to regulate the ownership of property that was national-ized or formally confi scated by the Third Reich or postwar administrative decisions, as well as during the common plundering that accompanied military action, by restitution or compensation. In the case of Holocaust victims or other victims of the German camps, the principle of restitution could, however, threaten the integrity of Memorials founded on the ruins of the camps. In connection with this, the fi nal declaration, on an initiative from Poland, in-cluded a paragraph strongly reinforcing the protection of the authenticity and integrity of Memorials connected with the Holocaust and concentra-tion camps. The countries in attendance at the summit de-

clared that:As the era is approaching when eye witnesses of the Hol-ocaust (Shoah) will no longer be with us and when the sites of former Nazi concentration and extermination camps, will be the most important and undeniable evidence of the tragedy of the Holocaust (Shoah), the signifi cance and integrity of these sites includ-

ing all their movable and im-movable remnants, will con-stitute a fundamental value regarding all the actions con-cerning these sites, and will become especially important for our civilization including, in particular, the education of future generations. We, therefore, appeal for broad support of all conservation efforts in order to save those remnants as the testimony of the crimes committed there to the memory and warning for the generations to come and where appropriate to consid-er declaring these as national monuments under national legislation.Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński participated in the preparations and work of the Polish delegation at the summit. “Previously, the in-tegrity of the original items from Auschwitz has featured almost exclusively in Polish

legislation. This is the fi rst time that two fundamental values in the commemoration of the victims, the preserva-tion of the authenticity and integrity of the Memorial, have been acknowledged on such a wide scale. The repre-sentatives of 46 states have ac-cepted this provision, and it is a very strong reference point in the face of all unwelcome actions intended to fragment the remaining original items not only from Auschwitz, but from all similar memorials. At a time when our civilization is characterized by increasingly frequent and pointed restitu-tion demands, the European and international consensus that Polish diplomacy has managed to achieve on the integrity of Memorials has fundamental signifi cance,” said Cywiński, adding that the summit was also an excel-lent occasion to promote the Polish proposal for maintain-

ing the authenticity of the site of the camps through the new Auschwitz-Birkenau Founda-tion.The passage in the Prague dec-laration about the fundamen-tal value of the authenticity and integrity of the “movable and immovable remnants” of the camps is consonant with the position of the Interna-tional Auschwitz Council. The wording of the declaration indicates that claims and the restitution process cannot be allowed to call into question the integrity of the Memorial and all the items in its inven-tory. As the head of the Polish delegation, Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski, noted in his remarks, “concern for the victims does not consist only of the provision of material aid. This concern also extends to the preservation of their heritage.”

Paweł SawickiThe Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Board of Trustees

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Board of Trustees

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Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski at the EU Summit

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AUSCHWITZ AND THE HOLOCAUST FROM A HISTORICAL

AND CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE

According to the journalist Adam Krzemiński, in the course of the last fi fty years—from “October 1956” and the build-ing of the Berlin Wall in 1961; after the fall of communism in 1989 and the entrance of Poland into NATO and the European Union—the Polish-German confl ict has turned into a union of mutual interests. Today, when we are allies

and neighbors, the Polish-German language of dialogue, which at one time was the most diffi cult language in the world, is no longer so diffi cult. It does demand, however, good will and empathy, without the notorious presumption of bad will.

The project of an institution dedicated to the escape and forced displacement of the Germans after World War II (the so-called visible sign) has recently raised lively dis-cussions. Between the Poles and the Germans, myths and hostilities were rekin-dled, weighing on Polish-German relations. In answer to the public debate around this issue the IYMC in co-op-eration with the Pedagogi-cal University in Krakow, the University of Rostock, the Polish-German Center in Krakow, and the Euro-pean Center in Waren M-V, prepared a two-part Polish-German seminar for the his-tory students in Krakow and Rostock titled: The migration and integration of Poles and Germans in Europe in the 20 century. Memory for the future: Auschwitz and the Holocaust from a historical

and contemporary perspec-tive. The objective of the seminar was to examine the proc-ess of forced displacements and resettlements, escapes and expulsions, integration and assimilation of Poles on the regained eastern ter-ritories and Germans from their former eastern lands (during World War II and shortly after the war ended). The students had already done research before the be-ginning of the seminar and they presented the results of their inquiries during the fi rst half of the seminar at the European Academy in Waren—the aim being to determine the similari-ties and differences in the experiences of these histori-cal processes by Poles and the Germans. The presenta-tions included, among other things, the subjects: Forced

migration after World War II: political aims, claims, grounds and legal agree-ments; Loss of homeland: the forced displacements in the years 1945 -1950—the organi-zation, how they were carried out and how they transpired; The road into the unknown —compulsory migration of the German minority from Eastern and Southern Eu-rope during World War II and after World War II.During the preliminary re-search on the subject, the students took into consid-eration the “spoken history” —they analyzed the reports of the witnesses, and placed their subjective recollections in a wider historical context. The students in their work on the subject discussed the questions: What proof still exists today? What is the condition of the studies done on the subject by historians? How did the communist au-thorities treat this matter in Poland, in the former East Germany and former USSR? How did the people adjust

in their new homeland and were they accepted? Were they able to integrate, or were they assimilated with the use of some kind of force? How do things look today? Do the witnesses of the events share their ex-periences? Is this subject present in public debate? How is politics adjusting to the situation? In looking for the answers to these ques-tions we were assisted be the following experts: Prof. Dr. Marek Wilczyński, Prof. Dr. Bodo von Borries, Dr. Anna Zapalec and Dr. Gün-ter Kosche.The second half of the semi-nar, which was held in May at the IYMC, concentrated on the history and the con-temporary perception of Auschwitz and the Holo-caust from a Polish and Ger-man perspective, as well as in the historiography of both

countries. The participants took part in a special visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Me-morial and spoke to former inmates Wilhelm Brasse and Kazimierz Smoleń; they also

delivered prepared, in-depth presentations on the subject, which were analyzed from a didactic aspect, that is on how to apply the material to be used in schools, where these students were practic-ing teaching or would be teaching in the future: The planning and execution of the Holocaust in Europe in the

20th century; Perpetrators, vic-tims, observers—the analysis of chosen biographies (place of ac-tion, motivation, consequenc-es); Postwar trials against the crimes of national socialism.The students of the Pedagog-ical University in Krakow also prepared a tour of the Old City, the Jewish Quar-ter—Kazimierz, and Nowa Huta. During the lecture by Prof. Dr. Marek Wilczyński, we discussed history that divides and that unites, we discovered stereotypes and myths, traces of which could be found in textbooks for teaching history in Poland and Germany, of which future teachers should be aware.

Ela Pasternak

January 20, 1945 with the threat of the approaching Soviet front, I tried to fl ee from where I lived in Eastern Prussia. The last train leaving had an accident and could not go any further. I tried to get to the German border by foot. I did not make it. On the way I encountered the fi rst Soviet troops. From one of the farms the owner was evicted and both he and his wife were executed in the horse stable with a shot in the back of the head. I tried to get to my mother. During the three weeks of wandering, I was dependent on the will of the Soviet soldiers. In the meadow, I lived through the most horrible night of my life. The Soviets got drunk and robbed the warehouse of all the food supplies. Almost all the men in the village were shot and the women brutally raped. I was raped twenty times that night. {…}. In mid February when I reached my parent’s farm, I saw that the Soviets were acting in the same brutal way {…}. The rapes were repeated without end. A neigh-boring woman, who had just given birth three days earlier, was not spared, nor was my 56-year-old mother. My acquaintance, Emma Stamer from the neighboring village of Silberbach and her husband committed suicide; Emma was not able to stand being raped anymore in the presence of her husband {…}.

REPORT OF A GERMAN WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE DURING HER ESCAPE

BEFORE THE RED ARMY:

“The evil that we experienced, even the worst, cannot become a justifi cation or presumption for us to commit evil unto those wronged us.”

Jan Józef Lipski

For most of the exiles work in the forest was a completely new ex-perience and was full of diffi culties. Our fi ve-man brigade had to struggle with many varied hardships. The tools were not always sharp and the right ones, and the way we had to carry out the work seemed foreign to us and not comprehensible. The effi ciency was low. The frost and snow hindered our movements and ate up the lion’s share of our energy {…}. To cut down a pine tree, you fi rst had to get to the tree, struggle through the snow up to your armpits or crawl over the snow on all fours like a dog. The sanitation was tragic in the special settlements. There, where medical stations were installed, they did not have the proper equipment or basic medi-cines. The lack of washing and laundry agents, clothes, extreme living conditions, a harsh climate, exhausting work and insuffi -cient nourishment turned out to worsen the exile’s state of health. As a result, epidemic diseases began: skin and digestive ailments and worst of all, typhus. Sickness, undernourishment, and exhaust-ing labor caused a high mortality rate among the deportees.

REPORT OF POLISH EXILES ON THE FORMER TERRAIN

OF THE SOVIET UNION:

Participants of the seminar touring Krakow

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Participants of the Polih-German seminar

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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009International Youth Meeting Center

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On Saturday, June 6, 2009, the International Youth Meeting Center greeted at its hospitable doorstep teach-ers, alumni, and sympathizers of the Youth Cultural House in Oświęcim. It was the fourth time that the event under the motto “IYMC—A Place for Everyone” was held there.

IYMC—A PLACE FOR EVERYONE

The event was the culmina-tion of the year’s work of the organization, which has been functioning since 1955, professionally organizing the free time of children and youth. In the last school year, 795 children participat-ed in 51 groups in 24 perma-nent sections. Almost half of them, as high as 47%, at-tended junior high and high school; 327 children lived beyond Oświęcim. Lessons were held in 16 different places, in 6 locations in the district: Oświęcim, Babice, Bobruk, Chełm, Gorzów and Polanka Wielka. Aside from the regular activities of the section, the Youth Cultural House organizes yearly 170 events and meetings for children and youth. Those attending the school win nu-merous awards and distinc-tions in contests, on various levels, both on a national and international scale. Each year the number of awards and distinctions is around two hundred. During the event one could admire the work of the dif-ferent sections. The teachers along with their students prepared interesting presen-tations. The Academy of 5-6 year olds, the Clay Modeling Studio, Art, Graphics and Artistic Ceramics, invited all those visiting the exhibition to a fascinating world of art

and the child’s imagination. One could see the exhibited works of the sections: Em-broidering, Modeling-works and the History of Art. The teachers of the sports section arranged contests and fi t-ness games. One could play chess, table tennis, and bas-ketball. There was also an opportunity to prove one-self on the obstacle course. All this took place in an at-mosphere of good fun and treats were prepared for the participants. The computer sections also prepared an engaging presentation. The visitors had an occasion to test their memories, percep-tion, logical and creative thinking. Members of the Young Journalist Club and Mind Games sections ar-ranged numerous games, riddles, puzzles, and mental exercises.All those that undertook the challenge and succeed-ed anxiously awaited the second half of the event. A prize draw was planned. Ten lucky persons received challenging board games from the Young Journalist Club and Mind Games sec-tions. One could also win a mascot, which the par-ticipants of the sport games obtained by draw. All the prizes were funded by the Parents Association of the Youth Cultural House. The

prize draw was not every-thing the participants wait-ed for. A very important element of the program was the awarding of honorary distinctions: Friends of the YCH, which were received by: Katarzyna Kuk, Janina Koźbiał, Anna Stryszewska and Beata Karkoszka. Se-lected children were also distinguished. Gold med-als were won, from the art

section, which was led by the teacher, Władysława Kapcińska: by Julia Mate-jko, Małgorzata Rochowiak, Elżbieta Rochowiak, Karo-lina Kuczek, Aleksandra Zajdel, Krzysztof Kłoda, and David Śliwiński; from the Young Journalist Club, led by the teacher Patrycja Więcek: by Agnieszka Guzdek and Justyna Momot; from the badminton section led by the

teacher, Tomasz Kantyka: by Rafał Szwagrzyk. The Direc-tor of the YCH, Aleksandra Stawicka, presented gold medals to those active in the self-government of the YCH. The Director handed out medals to Anna Augustyn, Anna Paluch and Sylwia Mazurkiewicz.Many emotions were stirred up by the stage perform-ances, which were rewarded by enthusiastic applause, especially for the sections: Language games – English lan-guage, Guitars and the Vocal Ensemble. The Children’s The-atre section invited the audi-ence to mutual fun in which everyone had to repeat dif-fi cult tongue twisters. All those present were in awe of the Dance section. Within the program of this section, we were able to enjoy the per-formances of three groups: Cats, Trick, and Wow. Watch-ing them just made one want to dance. And there was an opportunity to do so. In concluding their program, the Social Dancing section invited everyone to join in. A Belgian dance was cho-sen.During the Saturday event there was no end of attrac-tions. Certainly no one was bored. Everyone could fi nd something, and everyone could fi nd his own place. Therefore, the Youth Cul-tural House is A Place For Everyone. Remember this!

P.W.

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International Youth Meeting CenterOś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009

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On June 15, 2009, the Deputy Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Teresa Świebocka, retired. She began work at the Memorial in September 1967—at fi rst in the research department and later on in pub-lications, becoming the Museum’s Deputy Director in 2006. She co-authored several permanent exhibitions

at the Museum, as well as the design of the information and description system, exhibitions in the largest original camp building, the Sauna at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, and the project to commemorate the so-called Altejudenrampe. She authored numerous articles, and co-authored and edited dozens of books and albums.

YOU CAN’T JUST BE A BUREAUCRAT AT AN INSTITUTION LIKE THIS

A question that many visitors ask is, “How can one work here?” You have worked here over 40 years.Auschwitz has several levels of information and reception. These are not only the grounds of the former camp and a cem-etery, but also a place of remembrance, which has a very important role to play. We have always said that Auschwitz is something that should have a message to pass on, like a mini-UN. You meet people here from all over the world. We simultane-ously speak of the past and the future. When creating exhibitions, we often heard that history is one part of Auschwitz, but the present is anoth-er. Moreover, meeting with the former prisoners and their families, a per-son physically felt that this was an important place. When we helped in fi nding important documents, when some-one came and said that he did not know where his father disappeared, but that it was probably in Auschwitz. When we were able to fi nd the re-quired document, you could see the change in his face. You saw then how necessary this work was; that we are not only working so that the next book or pamphlet would

stand on the shelf. It was life, all the time. It was not only history, but also work with the living. That was the main reason why I decided to stay here.

Did you want to work here from the begin-ning?My being hired by the Museum was accidental. My professor at the Jag-iellonian University, Prof. Józef Buszko, offered me a job at the Silesian Insti-tute in Katowice, since the university did not have a place. I went to apply, but was told that I would have to wait six to eight months for a vacancy. I told this to my professor and he then proposed that I temporarily work for his colleague, Danuta Czech, at the Museum in Oświecim. As I slowly began to get acquainted with the materials, a day came when there was a telephone call from Kato-wice offering me an im-mediate work contract. At the time, I was com-pleting work on some materials and we agreed that I would call back in two months. I never an-swered, because another interesting subject came up. Again, I received a phone call from the In-stitute in Katowice, but I could not have stopped working because I was completely absorbed by

the subject. It was only after two years of work at the Memorial that I found out that my father’s two brothers were in Ausch-witz and were later transferred to Gusen. My father had no idea what happened to them after their arrest. It was only here, after many years, that I accidentally found the documents. This is supposedly the past, but it is very much tied to our present lives, over several generations. This is a mis-sion, a responsibility. It is good when you feel that you are doing something important, and not only signing and shuffl ing pa-pers. People leave here after two or three years or stay on for the rest of their lives.

Is that what kept you here?Yes, I came to the con-clusion that work here is incredibly engaging and interesting. New subjects and documents were constantly coming up. Only recently, dur-ing conservation work, a small ceramic cat was found; even perfume bot-tles, probably from the Hungarian transports, brought by women who were completely una-ware of their fate.

But all this is a very inti-mate human history…I like the philosophy that has been introduced at the Memorial over the last several years. Many years ago the vic-tims were referred to as “people” without nation-alities. After 1989, the beginning of the nineties, they were already Jews, Poles, or Gypsies. Now, for some time, we have been telling who these people were. At the ex-hibition in blocks 6 and 7 there is a certain positive element—photographs of the prisoners along with some basic information: fi rst and last name, pro-fession and date of death. Maybe this is a truism, but maybe if the biogra-

phies of these people are mentioned, they will in a certain sense be brought back to life. They do not completely disappear, nor do they completely fade away. It is said that the fam-ily memory lasts as long as one remembers one’s aunt, grandmother or un-cle. As long as memory endures, cultural conti-nuity endures. It was the same with Helena Ku-bica’s children’s album. Despite the fact that they died in Auschwitz at the ages of three, four, and fi ve, they are still alive. This is an exceptional place, where one can meet interesting people who have something to convey. That is why I liked to take groups on tour. I believed that I learned something new from each group: various expectations and various interpretations. How dif-ferently this place could be understood and how varied the sensitivity can be. It is very important that many things, which often provoked heated discussions in the world, resulted from a lack of knowledge about the sensitivity of the other side. One day, some young people from War-saw were cleaning up the area around the ru-ins of the so-called white house. and in good faith they put crosses and stars of David there, not con-sidering that they were

doing anything wrong. We know how that affair ended, and from that mo-ment on we forbade the deliberate placing of any symbols on the grounds of the Memorial. Once, a German remarked in passing that we are work-ing in a minefi eld without ever knowing when the next one will go off.

Work here, in reality, means navigating be-tween numerous sym-bols. But it is extraordi-nary how many threads of the present this place draws together. One has to remember not only history, but also today’s sensitivity. I remember the contro-versy that arose over the question of the hair. At a conference on the subject of Auschwitz’s past, dia-metrically opposed opin-ions arose: either to bury the hair, or not to bury it and save it. The whole discussion began at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. For the opening of that Museum, some hair was borrowed from us. Attacks began in the States, that you cannot exhibit it pub-licly. From that moment on, we made the deci-sion that we do not lend out hair. However, if the Auschwitz Memorial is a cemetery, then only here do we have the full moral right to show that hair. A similar discussion took place over the ashes of the

US Senator E.S. Muskie (1979)

Hillary Clinton and Jolanta Kwaśniewska (1996)

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murdered. People con-stantly wrote to us that they want ashes: if it was not a Jewish community, it was a church. There came a moment when we said “no”—the ashes cannot be disturbed. A few days ago, I was at a conference in Oslo, and having some free time, I stepped into the Na-tional Museum, where Egyptian sarcophaguses with skulls lay open. It really offended me; we should not display the human skulls of those who died. Before we introduced any kind of description in Birkenau, a large discussion also took place about wheth-er there should be any at all, or whether it should speak for itself through emptiness, silence and open space. We traveled to see several other mu-seums; one was Verdun, where we wanted to see how the site of the bat-tle was maintained. Un-derground, of one of the buildings, lay bones and skulls. I was shocked and said that at Ausch-witz, something like this was not possible. It is not about shocking people. Therefore, we try to avoid showing photographs of dead bodies. Of course, we have unique photo-graphs taken by the pris-oners, the Sonderkom-mando, showing the burning of corpses, but this is an exception. We should tell the histories of these people and not show corpses.

In any case, the au-thenticity of the place adequately speaks for itself. Beyond that, we have the remarkable testimonies of the prisoners. Now I have a little more time, so I reach for literature, even the older one. In the years 1946-48 the prison-ers wrote everything

fi rst hand. For example, Pelagia Lewińska in her exceptional book gave such a description of the interior of the prisoners’ barracks as rarely can be found—perhaps also in Zofi a Kossak-Szczucka. They are horrifying de-scriptions. And this is very important, since there are those that as-sert that the documents are most important and we only believe in the documents. In the case of the Nazi documents, one has to be careful in their interpretation, because there the issue of falsi-fi cation and concealing was very developed. I al-ways say that we should combine the two. If we have one shocking testi-mony, we should then, of course, look further. The prisoners could mis-take dates or names—it is their right, since it was written many years later —but no one can impart the atmosphere of the camp the way they can. Not even the best histo-rian can describe it. He is

unable to depict the way death hung over eve-rything, and how you met it at every step, or tell about the barracks, where one sometimes lay next to a dead body for twelve hours. This, only the prisoners can do.

You spoke of meeting with people. Did you of-ten have occasion to take people from the front pages of the newspa-pers on tour? When tell-ing them the history of Auschwitz, did you feel that you could in some way infl uence their de-cisions, that you could change something in them? I admit that I had hopes. First, perhaps, I will talk about Aktion Sühne-zeichen, whose repre-sentatives traveled here and worked as volun-teers back in the 1960s. When in Berlin, espe-cially West Berlin, pro-tests took place against Neo-Nazism and the cover-up of war crimes, I observed this and was convinced, that among them were those people who worked with us, because they felt respon-sible. It is an important thing—what to do so that people feel responsible. This is the main dilemma we face in creating a new exhibition. We must gen-

erate such a narrative that it is not only a lecture, but also a certain interaction, so as to even provoke a discussion between the tour guide and the group. As far as delegations are concerned, politicians are politicians—they have

their priorities, but the fact that they came and signed into our visitor’s book made the interest in this place around the world greater. I remem-ber that, three days after the visit of John Paul II in 1979, a group of students from Mexico arrived, who were in Paris when they watched the Mass held on the grounds of Birkenau. They bought tickets and came to Poland, and I ac-cidentally met them. They came because of the Pope and spent the whole day here. It is good that the possibil-ity of visiting Birkenau is much better today. In the past we were accused of hiding Birkenau. This, of course, is not true, since from the very beginning the Museum carried the name Oświęcim-Brzezin-ka. Of course, it should have been as it is now—Auschwitz-Birkenau—but Brzezinka was always there. Another thing is that the majority of peo-ple have cars, and groups come by bus. Between Birkenau and Auschwitz I, it is very simple. Back in the 1950s and 60s, the ma-jority of visitors came by train. Often, they had to travel from the station to the Museum on foot, and then had to hurry back to

catch their train and did not see Birkenau, which was, of course, a great loss.However, all the govern-ment delegations, kings, and presidents were al-ways taken to Birkenau. Birkenau is the most im-portant evidence, because even ruins are evidence. Crematoria and gas cham-bers, which were blown up, are proof of the Exter-mination on the one hand, but also of the anxiety and fear of the SS, which tried to cover all the evidence. In any case, the members of delegations were well versed as to where they were going, in knowledge and behavior, if for no other reason than the fact that they were constantly being photographed. Of course, there were those that only paid attention to the background against which they were stand-ing, a guard tower or the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate, in order to have a good picture. For most, the re-actions were deep. When, for example, President George W. Bush came, I considered what to say so that it would not be a rou-tine tour. When we stood on the unloading ramp in Birkenau, I remembered Elie Wiesel, whom the President knew well. Wie-

US Senator Edward Kennedy (1987) US President George W. Bush (2003)

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A group of Orthodox Jews from Israel (1983)

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President Aleksander Kwaśniewski (2002)

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sel would tell the story that when he arrived at just this ramp, after leav-ing his train car, one of the prisoners in a uniform in stripes, who was sort-ing the baggage, asked how old he was. When he answered, the prisoner said: “Say, you’re older! And why? That’s what you have to say… And how old is your father? Say, that he’s younger.” Thanks to this, they sur-vived. I told President Bush this anecdote and it worked, because that is the personalization of history. It would be good if every one of the guides could refer to a personal history.

There are many of these places at the Memorial that carry a great emo-tional charge. Did you ever have any diffi cult moments?I was very moved by the reaction of the prisoners’ families, when they dis-covered documents here. I saw the tears in their eyes. It was obvious that they were shocked, but were very grateful that the Museum had such things in storage. For me it was quite touching. However, when it comes to objects, certainly suitcases with names on them, because again, it is about people and their histories. These names make us aware that the victims were the same kind of people as we are. On the other hand, thanks to this, we can become aware of how much we lost through places like Auschwitz —how many potential Nobel Prize winners, po-ets and artists. It is a great hole in our civilization, since more than one gen-eration perished.

Is their any place on the grounds of the former camp that has a particu-lar meaning to you?

The unloading ramp, on which the SS made their selections among the de-ported Jews. When you think of families being split up, children torn from… There are such drastic descriptions of children being killed on the ramp. It always makes an impression on every-one. Personally, for my husband and me, the ru-ins of the white house are also important, the provi-sional gas chambers, since his father was murdered there. He was a member of the Home Army and was in the camp for only two months. He fell ill with typhus, and after being selected in the hos-pital, he was gassed. I do not like to speak of it, but someone told me that it was important, because it shows that people work-ing at the Memorial are also personally involved with the subject. I recently listened in on an interesting discussion about what we were go-ing to do when the survi-vors were no longer with us and how were we to continue passing on his-tory. Someone from Mau-thausen said that they would use people from the second or third gener-ations, so that the people working there would have a personal involvement in the subject. They will not be able to relate the his-tory in the same manner, but because of their family ties all of this will not exist in some kind of vacuum. Perhaps such people will prove to be more sensitive and more understanding. I was always very much impressed by what took place on November 1. In the crematorium, whole families from Oświęcim lighted candles. It is in-credible, that the camp is very often treated as a lia-bility for the town, but the residents visit this place, lighting candles in the

crematorium, or under the Wall of Death. Chil-dren are always with their families—this is very edu-cational, since they will re-member where they need to pray. Because this is a sanctuary.

Yes, because we always use the term Museum, but it is not the perfect description.That is the question—what are we? A museum, an educational center, a scholarly institution, a monument or a Memo-rial? We are fi rst of all a cemetery. On the other hand we have the task to pass this knowledge on to the future. That is why, for us, this is a great chal-lenge, if it concerns a new exhibition, for those who see it to feel responsibility. We must not only speak of those who perished, but also promote the liv-ing and clearly state who made it possible for them to survive. To show Hen-ryk Sławik, who saved several thousand Jews in Hungary, of whom the greater majority would have probably perished in Auschwitz; also the ex-ample of the escapees, to demonstrate that in this whole mass condemned to death many were able to save themselves.

You spoke of the second or third generation. In your opinion does the sensitivity of today’s young people differ from your sensitivity? You were born in the last year of the war.Sensitivity may be some-what different, but the most important thing is that it exists. Human sen-sitivity and opening up to other people are funda-mental in this place. If one accepts that this work is a sort of mission, then man will look at it differently. This is not a desk job. This is a mission and it mobi-lizes. Working at such an institution, you can’t just be a bureaucrat. People come here and expect us

to be sensitive and under-standing. You cannot treat anyone curtly. Generations have no meaning—it is a matter of individual sincer-ity and the world demands it of us, because we can see how highly this place is ranked in the world.

What, in your opinion, is the role of the Muse-um in the local commu-nity? In such a town, as Oświęcim, a place from which one simply cannot get away.I participated during the government of Jerzy Buzek in workshops con-cerning the relations be-tween the town and the Museum. It is a matter that to a greater degree depends on the good will of the local authorities. As long as some people keep saying, that the camp is a hindrance to the town’s development, that is how long problems will exist. I hope that when the new head offi ce of the Interna-tional Center for Educa-tion about Auschwitz and the Holocaust opens in the so-called Old Theater, there will be fewer ar-eas of contention. But I have the impression that the residents do not un-derstand one thing, that thanks to the existence of the Memorial the town of Oświęcim is known in the whole world.There is also another ques-tion that has long been talked about. What could be created in the town to keep people here? Let’s be realistic—we won’t keep the majority here. Częstochowa has just the same problem. It was said that millions of pilgrims come to Jasna Góra, but very few remain. The same is true in Monte Cas-sino and the town of Cas-sino. That is why some-thing has to be invented, to at least retain some of the people. This some-thing, in my opinion, can be education—to enlarge at least the number of seminars that last several days because, fortunately,

the response to the word Auschwitz is still alive in the world, and prob-ably more so abroad than in Poland. That creates a chance for the town. Slowly, something is be-ginning to happen. The Jewish Center is func-tioning, and that is some-thing remarkable. There is a beautiful Jewish cem-etery, a commemorative plaque for the Oświęcim Jews who perished in Auschwitz, and that was certainly a local initiative. Certainly a gallery of con-temporary art could be in-itiated in Oświęcim, since many artists would like to exhibit their works here, in “The City of Peace.” And there isn’t even a cin-ema here…

What does work in such a place give you?If I say a feeling of sat-isfaction, that would be inadequate… Some kind of fulfi llment. I can de-clare that forty years ago I made the right deci-sion, and they were not lost years. I made a good decision, even though I was very reluctant. Work at the Memorial offers an incredible opportunity to anyone who begins to have a feel for the subject in the slightest.

What is next? Certainly, you will miss many things.I belong to the group that is preparing the new ex-hibition for the Museum, and that is a great chal-lenge. I will therefore have things to do, and I am happy that I can take part in it. That compensates for everything. I will continue to have contact with peo-ple. I am glad that I don’t have to get up at 5:30 a.m., and that I will have more time for music or books, since I have so many of them and for several years have been putting them away especially for the moment when I would have more time—I need to fi nally start reading.

Interview by Paweł Sawicki Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet (1992)

The Minister of Education from Mexico (1970)

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Jewish Centerter

AMERICAN CADETS IN OŚWIĘCIM FOR THE FIFTH TIME

Fifteen cadets from the US Military Academy, US Naval Academy, US Air Force Academy and US Coast Guard Academy, visited Oświęcim and Poland in June as part of the annual Jew-ish Center “American Services Academies Program.” The aim of the program is an in-depth

historical study of the Holocaust and the ethical issues concerning the prevention of genocide.The fl ight to Poland was pre-ceded by an intensive pre-paratory course at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York and the Holocaust Mu-seum in Washington D.C., where the participants met with survivors of the Shoah and listened to their stories.The fi rst Polish city with which the cadets became ac-quainted was Krakow, where they were captivated by the Renaissance Old City and Wawel Castle. In the follow-ing days the guests from the

US visited the former Jewish Quarter, Kazimierz and the site of the Krakow Ghetto. The fi rst special event of this year’s edition of “American Services Academies Program” was a workshop led by Wait-man Beorn, from the Univer-sity of North Carolina on the participation of Wehrmacht soldiers in the Holocaust and a discussion on the ethi-cal challenges facing career army offi cers. In Krakow, the students listened to the story of Dr. Janina Rościszewska,

decorated with the title Right-eous among the Nations of the World for saving Jews during W.W.II.For the second part of the pro-gram, the Americans traveled to Oświęcim and the Jewish Center, where they learned about the history of the local Jewish society and its input into the development of the town. The participants were greatly impressed by their visit to the Auschwitz-Birk-enau State Museum, as well as the next part of the special

program—a meeting with Zo-fi a Łyś, who spoke of the dis-placement of her whole fam-ily from the Zamość region and their further tragic fates in Auschwitz. A supplement to the histories and losses of the Poles under Nazi and Soviet occupation was the showing of the movie Katyń, directed by Andrzej Wajda. A new and important element of the program was a special workshop on “Why we need tolerance” with the participa-tion of a Polish-Dutch group

of students from the Higher European School in Krakow exchange program, “Poland meets Holland.”The Americans’ visit to Po-land ended, as is traditional, with a visit to the Pieniny Moutains and a hike to the Red Monastery on the Slovak side of the Dunajec River.

Maciej Zabierowski

When one hears that a seminar was organized for junior high and high school students, it does not make much of an impression. However, when we say “a seminar for American cadets,” it immediately catches our attention. Tomasz Kuncewicz, di-rector of the Jewish Cent-er: Not long ago the fi fth edition of this program was completed. In the fi rst there were six par-ticipants, and this year there were fi fteen. That is the highest number up till now. The participants come from four differ-ent military academies in the USA. It really does sound interesting, since in the future the major-ity of these people will be military leaders. Most of them choose military careers. They come from different backgrounds. As a rule, one or two of them are of Jewish ances-try, the rest Catholics and Protestants.

How would you describe the philosophy of educa-tion behind this under-taking?The main question that we turn our attention to is military ethics. Using the Holocaust and World War II as well as the ac-tions of the Third Reich and its various uniformed units as an example, we try to encourage them to ask questions and draw conclusions. After all, the army did take part in those events, and to a cer-

tain degree was responsi-ble for them.

To this you also surely add the responsibility of following or not follow-ing orders.That is, of course, a very important subject. The participants themselves have many questions related to this subject, how to counteract such actions, and how they, as future soldiers, could behave in such extreme situations. After all, we sometimes hear what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Various moral dilemmas occur today, but not, of course, on the level of World War II. Accordingly, we want to take a close look at the past events at this place, refl ect upon why it hap-pened, and consider how not to allow such things to happen, keeping in mind the behavior of the individual.

In observing the partici-pants in the seminar, do you get the impression that this is an important subject for them? What is their reaction?The subject of military ethics is present at their schools; hence it is an im-portant subject for them. The history of World War II is an example of the total collapse of these ethics and one could im-agine that this is an ex-treme example, since the subject is so distant and unimaginable, and that it is even impossible. We present it in this way—

that we hope, of course, that they will never be confronted by such situ-ations, but that similar things, on a different scale, do take place. Dur-ing the program, aside, of course, from visiting the former Auschwitz camp, or meeting with the sur-vivors (with whom they met earlier in the United States, since a part of the program takes place at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and the Jewish Heritage Mu-seum in New York), we also, for example, saw Andrzej Wajda’s movie, Katyń. After the showing, there was a discussion on the situation on the other side. For the majority of them, this is completely new knowledge. The fi lm made a great impression on them, because, we had a situation where offi cers were outright murdered in an unprecedented way. Again, we can speak of the total collapse of mili-tary ethics. Besides, the discussion went even further, since we also spoke of symbols. In the West, Nazi symbols are completely forbidden and not allowed, while Communist symbols are not treated so negatively. That the USSR was an ally of the Allied forces had a great impact on how Communist crimes were perceived. These differing sensitivities must be shown to them, because in Poland many

people do not distinguish between Nazi and Com-munist crimes. To them this is something abso-lutely new, since they are not aware that, for some-one in Poland, they are explicitly the same.

You mentioned visiting the former camp, movies, and discussions. Is there time during the program to show them around Po-land? For all of them this is certainly their fi rst stay in our country.We try our utmost to vary the seminar program. There has to be a place for Poland. It is especially in-teresting that many of the participants have Polish roots. They are addition-ally motivated and in-terested in Poland as the country of their forefa-thers. This year, we were in Krakow, where they had a lot of free time; there was Oświęcim, and a trip around South-East-ern Poland, which ended in Nidzica and the Pieni-ny Mountains.

My experience is that indi-viduals who come for the fi rst time are positively surprised. This is a conse-quence of the somewhat stereotypical image that Poland has abroad. We are still a “former com-munist country,” which casts a shadow on mod-ern Poland. But in reality it does not correspond to that image. And certainly thanks to these programs and these visits, the par-ticipants opened up to Poland and sincerely like Poland because of their experiences.

What is the further fate of these people?Each one of them should prepare a presentation for its group back home. They also write essays, which are published in different places. It is inter-esting and important that many of the participants in our program return to Poland and want to do something here; a perfect example is Kate Craddy, who took part in the seminar “Bridges to His-tory” and now runs the Galicia Museum in Kra-kow.

Interview by Paweł Sawicki

THEY ARE OPEN TO POLAND

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TO BECOME COMPLETELY ONESELF AGAIN

Is it not a paradox? A group of fi fty adults travels eight hundred kilometers to a place called Oświęcim, in order to sense an inner, transformational experience. In Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, the countries from which the participants originated, this town numbering just over 40,000 inhabitants in the South of

Poland is virtually unknown. However, everyone knows the name Auschwitz, which the Germans gave this place. In the world it is a symbol of an unfathomable crime, which man committed against man, a symbol of the murder of over a million innocent people organized by the Nazi Regime on an industrial scale.

The seminar in Oświęcim was part of an exercise ini-tiated and lead by Annette Kaiser. This exercise, consist-ing of nine stages, is called DO—nameless. Auschwitz was our seventh stage. DO designates the road, which is understood as an aid to getting nearer to our own, unnamed essence.

Although in the practice of meditation the experience of absolute silence is a key element of this road, the in-ner-mystical dimension of being human is not every-thing. The exercise should be integral in the sense that it allows the possibility of universal consciousness in daily life. This will be

possible when the I, which one experiences separately from everything else in the world, opens itself in the present to transpersonal-ism, to NOW. The partici-pants of the group do not differentiate themselves, in the sense that they wish to be something special, but it is obvious that they are normal people—God’s creatures accumulating hu-man experiences. All the main dimensions of being human are engaged in this exercise. During the visit to Auschwitz, it was not in the end the intention to heal old wounds on the level of our collective con-sciousness. In the morning and evening we practiced Dhyana medi-tation, which—like on the road in Zen—could evoke in the meditator a state of pure perception with-out engaging emotions or

thoughts. The group was under intensive guardian-ship. Besides Annette Kai-ser, there were Zen Mas-ter Sensei Grover Genro Gauntt, who fl ew in from New York for the seminar, Anne Christine Neubacher, and Annette’s husband, George Eich. The method of care used was coun-seling. During the meet-ings, which took place in small groups after morn-ing meditation, a place was created for the participants where they could express emotions that at times manifested themselves in

uncontrolled crying. This process in affect was char-acterized by belonging or group identity, and for certain individuals it also had the effect of relief and cleansing.

Our fi rst day began with a tour of Krakow. During a beautiful day, there is nothing that could keep the people of this city within their own four walls. It seemed, as though all the inhabitants and tourists were out on the streets. They strolled along the lovely avenues, squares

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In the shade of the barracks, the singing of 45 well-fed people, in the place where during the camp’s operation 800 or more people starved and suffered. Dona Nobis Pacem—the power of singing and the human experience of being united seemed to brighten the interior. Back then, they also sang and prayed—singing barracks in the face of death—and today as well? I swear that it is possible to reject hatred in relation to other people. At Auschwitz-Birkenau I understood how I can, as a human, get to the other side of being human. Functionality, functional sys-tems, which are put above man and his expression of life, can be inhuman. Only being a human, and happiness, can prevent crimes against humanity. A new beginning lin-gers in every look—just as spring came to Auschwitz.

Imke Lohmann

March of the Living. Up front in a trench coat, Annette Kaiser

I am touched by God’s spark of life, which was present even at the moment of deepest pain and which I feel to-day in the unmeasured goodness of nature. In my own self, I carry contradictions of destruction and life, and my mind is not able to join them; only through love can they be joined in the heart.

Johanna Nyffenegger

Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation

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Meditation by the unloading ramp

and also along the banks of the Vistula River. What was most important for our group was the tour through Kazimierz, once the Jew-ish quarter of the city. Not much to see of Jewish life today. At one time the Jews constituted 30 percent of Krakow’s population; to-day barely 150 of them live in Kazimierz—mostly old-er Jews. We were very im-pressed by our visit to the still functioning Synagogue and the adjacent Jewish cemetery.

The second day was de-voted to visiting the former Auschwitz camp. First

of all, during the projec-tion of a black and white documentary fi lm, we saw things that were incompre-hensible. We came in con-tact with a time and events during which all respect for life was extinguished. We felt what words like “racial cleansing” and “an-nihilation of man” really meant. If it were not for the documents, which showed that it truly did occur, one might believe that it actu-ally could not have taken place. For the next several hours, we walked along the surviving remains of the wall of torture, humili-ation and the beastly treat-

ment of man by man. One of the participants, Kilian Raetzo, wrote: “This day re-ally exhausted me and left me speechless. I, of course, was largely aware of this informa-tion. But the ghastly details completely overwhelmed me… How long will we still drag this on? And I again rein-forced my decision: I want to be part of a far-reaching proc-ess of social change… As far as the fundamentals of respect and existing for each other. To the culture of being a neighbor and to perseverance. To a liv-ing ethic towards every form of creation.”

That our third day was to become a totally excep-tional experience, we had Dr. Fr. Manfred Deselaers, from the Center for Dia-logue and Prayer, which was also our guest home, to thank. The former camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau were closed this day to visi-tors. Each year for over ten years the Auschwitz Muse-um has observed a special day of remembrance. On this occasion, 7,000 Jewish youth came from all over the world, to take part in the March of the Living. Our group accepted it as a great privilege to be able to participate along with them on this three kilometer road leading from the former camp of Auschwitz to the former camp of Birkenau. And that reconciliation is possible was demonstrated in a short dialogue with

one of the Jewish partici-pants of the March:Where are you from?From Germany.Thank you very much for coming.

On the fourth day, we spent the evening in one of the surviving wooden bar-racks at camp Birkenau. We joined in the silence of this place, we sang songs to-gether and Annette Kaiser read excerpts from a diary left by Etty Hillesum, who as a young Jewish Dutch woman lived at camp West-erbork and was in the end murdered in a gas cham-ber at Auschwitz. Through her words it is plain to see

that locked within her was a source of strength, which could be an inspiration for all of us: The poverty is tru-ly great, but despite it, I run in the late evening, when the day has fallen behind me into a dark abyss, with a bounding step along the barbed wire and again from my heart springs the thought that there is noth-ing I can do, that’s just the way it is, an elementary force: life is something wonderful and great, we must later build a completely new world—to-wards every following crime, towards every cruelty we must stand up with love and good-ness, which we must muster up in ourselves.

Gerd Luthe

On the third day, I was engulfed by a deep peace. This is how I wish to remain at peace. To cultivate peace in my heart and be guided by such a heart. No matter where I would go, who I would meet or what experi-ences I would encounter, I want always to bring my peace there. To be present with an internal peace. On the fi fth and fi nal day, I was overcome by a deep friend-ship. Sitting on the unloading ramp in Auschwitz-Birk-enau, I was reading the names of the victims and be-friended them. I ran along the roads, across fi elds and in the dust, once ashes, and blessed the dead souls. And they blessed me a thousand-fold. A light wind arose, and in the rustling birches and beech trees their voices whispered. And they told me their stories. Yes, histo-ries of suffering and sadness. But also histories of love and joy, envy and pettiness, goodness and inspiration.Histories of their completely ordinary but remarkable humanity. I heard their laughter and songs. These souls whispered to me that I sing their songs. That I dance their dances. That I live their unrealized joy. They bless-ed me for my great journey called life. A bond of friend-ship spread over us and our names. A bond of warmth. This is what they demanded that I do: no less and no more than to be a kind person.

Kilian Raetzo

To become completely oneself again. To learn, that we are a shining diamond, consisting of light and shadow. And it is not about, not only, about seeing ourselves as a diamond, but all the people who were in Ausch-witz. The victims as well as the perpetrators. They all are, they all were whole people, they loved and hated, loved and suffered. Light and shadow are so close to each other in Auschwitz… I also could have been deep-ly happy in Auschwitz.On the other side of words.Beyond pain, My own and these strangers’,the ancient and the new,Beyond silence itselfIt always is.Call it love.

Jacqueline Forster-Zigerli

In the four days that we spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau, my most important exercise, in the light of the cruelty felt there, was opening the heart, not closing it.

Christiane Dilger

Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009 Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation

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Born on September 29, 1921, in Brzeszcze. near Oświęcim, he was the son of Antoni and Wiktoria née Płużek. He was raised in a working-class en-vironment with rich social-ist traditions, mainly thanks to his father, who joined the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in 1924. Marian Gach attended elementary and vocational school in Brzeszcze, and went to work in the Bata shoe fac-tory in nearby Chełmek in 1938. When the outbreak of the war limited shoe produc-tion a year later, he had to look for other work; he found a job in the coal mine in his home-town of Brzeszcze. He worked underground as a miner’s

helper. When the shoe factory in Chełmek increased its out-put and began hiring again, he went back there, and stayed on there as a lathe operator until December 1944.He was active in the resistance movement during the war. He joined an underground organ-ization—the PPS Brzeszcze Group, which operated in the vicinity of Auschwitz Concen-tration Camp. He went by the pseudonyms “Alfons” and “Hermes.” At fi rst, he served as a courier, and afterwards, from mid-1944, became the commander. He worked ac-tively within his organization for the sake of the Auschwitz prisoners. He clandestinely provided them with material aid in the form of food, medi-cine, and warm clothing, as well as the underground so-cialist press. He received and concealed escapees from the camp. He furnished them with false identity cards. He served as an intermediary in secret contacts between the prison-ers and the outside world. He received evidentiary ma-terial on SS crimes from the camp resistance movement and conveyed it to the Polish underground. This material included photographs of ex-

termination, copies of and extracts from camp records, and reports on conditions in the camp, the extermination of the Jews, the destruction of Poles, Roma, and other ethnic groups, and Nazi plans for removing the evidence of the crimes they had committed. Many of the secret messages coming out of the camp were addressed to him personally, under the names “Alfons” and “Hermes.” In December 1944, under threat of arrest, he had to leave Brzeszcze and resettle in Krakow. Next, he joined a partisan unit and fought against the Germans in the vicinity of Izdebnik, near Myślenice.He was supported in the ef-fort to aid the prisoners by his family, and especially by his sister Antonina (born 1919), a member of the clandestine Brzeszcze Group. She helped the prisoners in various ways, supplying them with food and medicine, acting as an intermediary for their secret correspondence, and help-ing to prepare escapes from the camp. Employed in the personnel records offi ce in the Brzeszcze coal mine, she had access to various offi cial forms, and prepared false

identity papers for escapees from Auschwitz, members of the underground movement, and people who were in hid-ing and being sought by the Gestapo. Once her brother Marian went to Krakow, she maintained the contacts with the resistance movement in-side the camp.After liberation, Marian Gach served in the army and then returned to the footwear in-dustry. In 1948, he married Stanisława Dec. They had two children, a son and a daugh-ter. Working in the shoe in-dustry, fi rst in Chełmek, then in Otmęt, and fi nally in Nowy Targ, Marian Gach advanced from lathe operator to line manager to deputy director for production. He undoubt-edly helped his own career by constantly improving his edu-cational qualifi cations, fi rst in the Mechanical Technical School in Bytom, and then on a Higher Course in State Ad-ministration, in Poznań. After a professional career spanning 40 years, he retired in 1978.While working and furthering his education, he also found time for a wide range of com-munity activities. He was chairman of the Włókniarz Sports Club, which fi elded

teams under the sponsorship of the Otmęt plant. He was also a member of the Pre-sidium, and on two different occasions a member of the Municipal People’s Council in Nowy Targ, which he made his home, and chairman of the Powiat Board of the Union of Fighters for Freedom and De-mocracy (ZBoWiD) there. He was also chairman of his local Neighborhood Committee on three different occasions, and chairman of the Auschwitz Preservation Society.He received a range of deco-rations and honors for his occupation-era and postwar professional and commu-nity service, including the Offi cer’s Cross of Polonia Restituta, The Knight’s Cross of the Order of Poland Re-born, the Partisan Cross, and the Gold Cross of Service.

Biographical sketch from:People of Good Will.

Memorial Book of Residents of the Land of Oświęcim

Who Rendered Aid to the Prisoners of Auschwitz

Concentration Camp,Henryk Świebocki, ed.

Auschwitz-BirkenauState Museum

Preservation Society,Oświęcim, 2009

History

PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL

MARIAN GACH

VESTIGES OF HISTORYFROM THE COLLECTIONS OF

THE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM

Two years ago, I received an e-mail from a man who claimed to have a silver watch in his collection with the inscription “Prize for a Good Driver, Oświęcim-Praga,” and the date June 1, 1930.

He asked me for help in fi nding information about the Oświęcim-Praga fac-tory and the watch itself. I was surprised, because I had been unaware that watches with such inscrip-tions existed. I asked him to send me a copy. I knew al-most everything about the Oświęcim-Praga cars that

were produced in Oświęcim in the 1930s, but I had a lot of trouble fi nding out any-thing about the watch and its story. After two years of searching for information about what had happened to the owner of the watch, the collector agreed to sell it to me. When I took delivery of it, I was surprised to see

that it still ran.The car magazines from the 1930s that I have in my col-lection described rallies for Oświęcim-Praga cars. The watch with the inscription was probably awarded to the winner of one of these rallies. The date pointed to a rally held in Poznań on June 1, 1930, which was de-scribed in one of the maga-zines.The Oświęcim-Praga car factory is now the OMAG Machinery and Equipment Factory. Previously, it was known as the Oświęcim Consolidates Machinery and Car Factory. In the 1930s, it manufactured Oświęcim-Praga passenger cars and trucks, which were popular in prewar Poland. One model was the Grand. Two of them were entered in the 1930 Monte Carlo Rallye, and one fi nished. Famous owners, like the opera singer Jan Kiepura and the painter Wojciech Kossak, endorsed the cars in ads.

Mirosław GanobisA watch with the inscriptions

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This miniature wooden clog—a sym-bol of the suffering of the prisoners—served a member of the SS as a wall

ornament. Auschwitz prisoners made it in the camp carpentry shop, where they were assigned to labor.

Aside from their offi cial as-signments, the prisoners made many things illegally for the private use of mem-bers of the SS, as a way of earning an occasional extra portion of bread. The mini-ature prisoner’s clog has the word “Holland” carved on the front, and a hook on the back from which it could be hung. Former prisoner Nikodem Pieszczoch do-nated it to the Museum. He does not recall how it came into his possession. It was probably left behind in one

of the houses in Oświęcim where SS members lived.Nikodem Pieszczoch ar-rived in Auschwitz in the fi rst transport of Polish political prisoners on June 14, 1940. He was 18, and re-ceived prisoner number 673. Two years later, he was trans-ferred to the Neuengamme camp. After evacuation from there, he was one of the few survivors of the sinking of the Cap Arcona.

Agnieszka SieradzkaCollections Department A-BSM

A miniature prisoner’s clog

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THROUGH MOL’S LENS A training session with the Polish champion rugby team, from Katowice, was held at the Powiat Sports Champions Secondary School Complex 2 in Oświęcim. The name of the game derives from Rugby School in England, where the fi rst match was played in 1823—during a football match, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it. In 1895, a controversy over pay for players led to the rise of two different variants, Rugby League with 13 players, and the more traditional Rugby Union with 15 players.

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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 7, July 2009