THE SINTI AND ROMA DAY OF REMEMBERANCE GUESTS IN THE CONSERVATION WORKSHOP A BRIDGE TO HISTORY

AFTER AUSCHWITZ —A CULTURE OF LISTENING

ISSN 1899-4407ISSN 1899-4407

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no. 32 August 2011

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

Editor:Paweł SawickiEditorial secretary: Agnieszka Juskowiak-SawickaEditorial board:Bartosz BartyzelWiktor BoberekJarek MensfeltOlga OnyszkiewiczJadwiga Pinderska-LechArtur SzyndlerColumnist: Mirosław GanobisDesign and layout:Agnieszka Matuła, GrafikonTranslations: David R. KennedyProofreading:Beata KłosCover:Rebecca LimPhotographer:Paweł Sawicki

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-Birkenau ul. Więźniów Oświęcimia 2032-603 Oświęcime-mail: os@auschwitz.org.pl

This month, there are many pages de-voted to the subject of historical mainte-nance and, importantly, the commemo-rations that have taken place on August 2, 2011, to mark the Sinti and Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Published in this issue, among others, is an article written by British students, who are doing their professional train-ing at the Conservation Workshops of the Memorial Site.

In this issue of Oś, we also report on the cooperation agreement signed between the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

and the Witold Pilecki State Higher Vo-cational School. Thanks to this agree-ment, there will be the possibility, among others, for the joint organization of conferences as well as for students from the Oświęcim based institution to perform their professional training at the Memorial Site.

On the pages of the International Youth Meeting Center, we recommend the text about the workshop dealing with the subject of anti-Judaism and also the article about the seminar for the volun-teers of the Action Reconciliation/Ser-vice for Peace. The Jewish Center writes

about the next edition of the Bridges to History. We are also pleased to recom-mend looking at the next part of the guide around Jewish Oświęcim.

In the last issue we wrote about the meeting held in Oświęcim by members of the International Council of Chris-tians and Jews. In the August issue of Oś, we publish the lecture by Fr. Man-fred Deselaers, given during a special session of the ICCJ at the International Center for Dialogue and Prayer.

Paweł SawickiEditor-in-chief

os@auschwitz.org.pl

EDITORIAL

A GALLERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY

The building that is the present castle was built in Oświęcim at the beginning of the fourteenth century and in later centuries it was rebuilt several times. It is of-ten mistakenly called (as on the pictured postcard) the “Piast castle,” referring to an earlier, non-existing build-ing, which burned down in 1503. At a time when the pre-sent castle was rebuilt, the Duchy of Oświęcim had been owned for almost 40 years by the Jagiellonian dynasty. After a fire in 1503, the castle was rebuilt: King Aleksand-er Jagiellończyk ordered that it be restored to its former glory. Construction work lasted until 1543, unfortunately, in the early seventeenth century, during the Swedish wars as well as in the years following, the castle was again de-stroyed by flames and it gradually fell into disrepair, de-spite of the fact that in 1765, as a result of a parliamentary resolution, urgent repair works were ordered to be done.In later years, the castle faced other tragic moments: in 1805 and in 1813, it was destroyed by a flood, which was described in 1867 by Jan Nepomucen Gątkowski: “half of the hill fell apart, and with its buildings and walls, it was turned into a heap.” Austrian authorities marked the building for demoli-tion. Kajetan Russocki purchased it—but, rather than rebuild it, he made it into a salt depot, among others. In later years, Jewish merchants owned the building: Landau, Schönker and Schnitzer, who used it as warehouses. In 1904, Karol Kaszny, the new owner, rebuilt the castle and made it into a winery, brewery and the “Zamek Hotel.” Six years later, Kaszny rented the building to the Oświęcim City Council.The next owner of the building was Jakub Haberfeld, who made it into a warehouse for wine and vodka, pro-duced by his factory. In 1926, the castle was purchased by the County Department of Biała Krakowska, which com-

pletely restored the building during the years 1928-1931. During the time of the Second World War, the occupa-tional forces used the castle, after the war it was the head-quarters for the Collective Municipal Council [Urząd Gminy Zbiorowej], and then from 1952 it housed the County National Council [Powiatowa Rada Narodowa].The oldest part of the castle is its Gothic defense tower, which was built between 1241 and the start of the four-teenth century. During the war with Sweden, the tower was destroyed and for over 200 years it stood without a roof, nearly ruined. It was not until Karol Kaszny that it underwent a renovation. Behind the tower is the only surviving fragment of the modern defensive fortifica-tion that the castle possessed, which until the early nine-teenth century, encircled the entire hill. Remnants of the earthen defense barrier, older than the defense tower, were discovered during archaeological excavations. The pre-served section of the bastion defense wall is from the pe-riod of the castle’s reconstruction following a fire in 1503.According to Jan Stanek, the castle in Oświęcim was con-nected to the Dominican Church by a tunnel, which was supposedly discovered during the Second World War.Currently, there are two underground tunnels in ex-istence: the older of the two, “the long tunnel,” also known as the “Austrian,” and the “diagonal” tunnel, created by the Germans in the years 1940-1944. Today the only entrance to these underground tunnels can be found on the western side—from Bulwary Street.

The information is derived from the book Oświęcim i ziemia oświęcimska edited by Aurelia Hołubowska.

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A postcard from 1915 that depicts the castle in Oświęcim. This item is from the collection of Mirosław Ganobis who writes the Gallery of the Twentieth Century

Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011

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Auschwitz-Birkenau State MuseumOś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011

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In the course of the Warsaw Uprising and after its sup-pression, as a result of re-pression operations, the Ger-mans deported more than a half a million of the inhabit-ants of Warsaw. About thir-teen thousand people includ-ing infants, children and the elderly were incarcerated in the Concentration and Exter-mination Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Earlier, Director Piotr M.A. Cywiński took part in mu-nicipal ceremonies during which floral tributes were placed on the stone of the Tomb of the Unknown Sol-dier in Tadeusz Kościuszko Square in Oświęcim. “Polish civilian losses in the Second World War were greater than the total losses of France and Great Britain combined, and no other city lost more than

half its population in this war,” said Piotr Cywiński. “Warsaw wanted to fight and Warsaw had a right to fight. However, the cost of that fight turned out to be enormous. Yet without the Uprising Warsaw would not be Warsaw today and Po-land would not be Poland. As it was written in the first proclamations on August 1, ‘Poland will win its own

freedom. From Europe it de-mands only justice.’ It is hard not to add that, in the end, Poland won that freedom—half a century later.” Numerous Museum publi-cations perpetuate the mem-ory of these events. In 2000 the Museum published the monumental Księga Pamięci. Transporty Polaków z War-szawy do KL Auschwitz 1940-1944 [Memorial Book: Trans-ports of Poles from Warsaw to Auschwitz Concentration Camp 1940-1944]. It is de-voted to Poles deported to Auschwitz from the so-called Warsaw district and contains all the names of residents of Warsaw deported by the Germans in connection with the outbreak of the Uprising

that historians have man-aged to trace. In 2007 the Mu-seum published a new and expanded edition of the often reprinted collection of stories about children in Auschwitz that was published under the title Dzieciństwo w pasiakach (Childhood Behind Barbed Wire). This is one of the most moving documents about the tragic fate of Auschwitz prisoners as well as a dis-turbing image of the camp as seen through the eyes of a child. Its author, Bogdan Bar-tnikowski, participated at the age of twelve as a courier in insurgent fighting in Ochota. He and his mother were de-ported to Auschwitz on Au-gust 12, 1944.

Bartosz Bartyzel

REMEMBRANCE OF THE UPRISING

The Warsaw Uprising broke out 67 years ago, on August 1, 1944. The heroic combat went on for 63 days. On the anniversary of these events, Museum Director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, himself a native of Warsaw, joined Oświęcim mayor Janusz Chwierut and his deputy Maria Pędrak in laying a wreath at the Death Wall on the

grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz, paying homage to the heroes and victims of the Uprising including the thousands of residents of the capital deported to Auschwitz.

COOPERATION wITH AN OśwIęCIm BASED EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

The Museum Director, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, and the Dean of the school, Profes-sor Lucjan Suchanek, signed the document. Oversight of the cooperation will be done by ICEAH Director Krysty-na Oleksy and Professor Witold Stankowski from the Zakład Pamięci o Zagładzie i Prawach Człowieka PWSZ [Department of Remem-brance of the Holocaust and Human Rights at the PWSZ].Cooperation is aimed at, among others, creating the optimal conditions for the organization of conferences, seminars, and exhibitions de-

voted to Auschwitz and the Holocaust as well as issues in-volving the genocide and the prevention of crimes against humanity, and also the prepa-ration of joint publications.Political science students of the Higher School, will be able to, among other things, take part in a three-week pro-fessional training program at the Museum as well as in educational workshops or-ganized by the ICEAH. Both institutions will also share their collected materials for the preparation of joint edu-cational projects.Among the Polish institutions

of higher education work-ing in cooperation with the International Center for Edu-cation about Auschwitz and the Holocaust are: the Peda-gogical University of Cracow, the Jagiellonian University as well as Cracow University of Economics, Warsaw Uni-versity, University of Silesia in Katowice, University of Wrocław, University of Łódź, Lublin Catholic University, and the University of Opole. The agreement between the Museum and State Higher Vocational School is signed for three years.

Bartosz Bartyzel

Joining the institutions that cooperate with the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holo-caust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is the Witold Pilecki State Higher Vocational School in Oświęcim. On July 20, the two institutions signed a cooperation agreement.

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The 67th Anniversary of Warsaw Uprising. Laying of flowers at the Death Wall. From the right: Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, Director of the Aus-

chwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Janusz Chwierut, Mayor of Oświęcim, Maria Pędrak, Deputy Mayor

Official signing of the cooperation agreement by: Auschwitz Museum Di-rector, Piotr M.A. Cywiński and PWSZ Dean, Professor Lucjan Suchanek

TRanSPORTS Of POLES TO COnCEnTRaTIOn anD ExTERmInaTIOn CamP aUSCHWITz fROm WaRSaW afTER THE OUTBREak Of THE UPRISIng

Almost thirteen thousand arrested men, women, and children from Warsaw were de-ported to Auschwitz by way of a transit camp in Pruszków in August and September 1944. They were imprisoned on the grounds of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.Among the deportees were people from various social groups and occupations (govern-ment officials, scientists, artists, doctors, merchants, and blue-collar workers), in various sorts of physical condition (wounded, sick, disabled, or pregnant), and of various ages from infants a few weeks old to people of 86 or more. In a few cases they were also of non-Polish ethnicity, including some Jews who were in hiding “on Aryan papers.”The largest transports, carrying a total of almost six thousand people (including about four thousand females and two thousand males; more than a thousand of these deportees were children and young people of both sexes), arrived in Auschwitz on August 12 and 13. Another transport of 3,087 men, women, and children was sent from Pruszków to Aus-chwitz on September 4. The next two transports, on September 13 and 17, involved almost four thousand men and boys; there were also three women among them. As part of the initial stages of the preliminary evacuation of Auschwitz, the majority of the people from these transports were sent within a few weeks or months to camps in the depths of the Third Reich and put to work in the armaments industry. Many of them died in these camps.At least 602 women with children, including children born in camp, were deported to camps in Berlin in January 1945. Some of the prisoners from the Warsaw transports men-tioned above were evacuated from Auschwitz in January 1945.Some of them died on the “Death March” and others survived to be liberated from camps in the depths of the Ger-man Reich. At least 298 men, women, and children deported there from Warsaw lived to see liberation at Auschwitz.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011

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mORE kNOwLEDGE AND USEFUL SkILLS

Throughout our placement at the Auschwitz Museum, we were afforded the opportuni-ty to work on a very sensitive historic collection, and were able to experience the accom-panying sense of responsibil-ity that came with working with such important objects. More than in any of our other placements—whether in pri-vate conservation studios or in larger national museums and galleries—the work un-dertaken upon the objects held within the Auschwitz collection raised the question of ethical considerations with regard to the object and the appropriate choice of treat-ment.The ethical consideration must always be taken into account when deciding on the extent of treatment, and to whether a preventive or interventive approach would be more appropriate. Within the museum environment, there has been an increas-ing amount of interest by the public and media regarding the role of the conservator, not least in such a historically im-portant place as Auschwitz, which has subsequently led to a far greater level of scruti-ny and liability into any work undertaken. Consequently, often a more “hands-off” ap-proach is adopted, with con-servators opting for minimal levels of interventive treat-ment, or indeed exclusively preventive measures, such as providing appropriate dis-play and storage conditions to minimise any further dete-rioration. The objects in the Auschwitz collection that are in need of attention have often deterio-rated through exposure to ex-treme environmental condi-tions or have been damaged by deliberate acts of vandal-ism. It is important therefore that decisions should always be taken on a case-to-case basis based on the individual needs of the object. It is, argu-ably, a natural instinct for a conservator to want to mini-mise the presence of dam-age in order to improve the object’s aesthetic appearance. However, it is vitally impor-tant to undertake research on the object in question, as it may be the case that the dam-age constitutes an important part of its history. Further-more, it could be argued that to carry out treatment with

the desire to restore the ob-ject to its former appearance, by recreating any losses in an exact manner thus rendering the repairs as undetectable as possible, is blurring the dis-tinction between the role of the conservator, concerned with the long-term stability of the object, and that of the re-storer who is more interested in its aesthetic appearance. Our time spent in the conser-vation studio at Auschwitz allowed us to work on objects which are unique to this par-ticular place, giving us the opportunity to develop and enhance our skills, particu-larly when considering ap-propriate treatment options and the ethical ramifications that these choices would have. This was something that those of us working on the paper objects encountered when considering the appro-priate treatment for a burnt Hebrew textbook. A previous conservation re-

port had stated that the He-brew textbook in question was found in a pile of rags in Block No. 26 in Birkenau after the war, upon which it was trans-ferred to the archives held in Block No. 25 in Auschwitz. This was the only documenta-tion on the object. It is conjec-ture, therefore, that this object was taken from a Jewish pris-oner, who on arrival to the camp was placed in the “Can-ada” barracks, and was pos-sibly burnt when the barracks were being liquidated by the SS preceding its liberation in January 1945. The likelihood that the object was smuggled into the barracks is also quite

possible and, although this would have posed a grave danger to the prisoner in-volved, it would explain the area in which it was found. Whatever the background of the textbook, it is a unique piece saved from destruction in Birkenau, and its stabiliza-tion is important for future users of the archive and visi-tors to the museum.The surviving pages of the textbook were charred and fragmented with severe loss-es to the edges. The pages were brittle with very little tensile strength as a result of the burn damage and the ex-posure to environmental fac-tors. The aim of the treatment was therefore, not to bring the document back to its original condition prior to its burning, which is an important part of the objects history, but rather to stabilize the paper with the aim of allowing the document to be safely stored in the mu-seum archive, and to be made

available for examination by future researchers.Meanwhile, the paintings conservation students were invited to work on an object that they had previously not experienced during their past years of training. They were provided with a wooden door which had been uncov-ered in the basement of one of the blocks in Auschwitz. This had been subjected to extreme weather conditions over the years, and was therefore in dire need of treatment. They were faced with the challenge of minimizing the risk of fur-ther loss to the flaking paint layer of the door. This treat-

ment involved a process of painstaking consolidation in which the flakes of paint were re-adhered to the wooden frame of the door. Whilst un-dertaking this treatment, they were able to experiment with different techniques and solu-tions to successfully treat the

paint layer. The knowledge acquired during this exer-cise is a good example of the learning of transferable skills, as the treatment of wooden objects was not something widely covered during our University studies. This new information can be taken for-ward into future work which may involve the treatment of timber artefacts.To end, our placement at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Muse-um gave us the opportunity to further our knowledge and practical skills and gain great-er confidence in working with a collection within such a his-torically important setting.

We feel fortunate therefore to have been given the chance to develop the expertise re-quired in dealing with such a sensitive collection, and it has provided a valuable step-ping stone into the conserva-tion profession. Techniques and technologies often differ from studio to studio, coun-try to country, and there is no doubt that our time spent at Auschwitz, expanding on the knowledge that we acquired at university, will hold us in good stead for our future careers, wherever they may take us. More than anything, it was a privilege, in our small way, to contribute to the safe-guarding and protection of the collection, ensuring that it will remain available for future generations to experi-ence. We can only hope that other students make the same trip to Poland, and continue to learn from what the con-servators at the Auschwitz conservation department can teach them.

Emma Davey

In February of this year four Conservation of Fine Art students—Catherine McKenny, Lucy Partridge, Rebecca de Bút, and Emma Davey—from Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, specialising in the disciplines of paintings and works of art on paper, travelled to Poland to undertake a short placement in the conservation depart-

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Conservators from Britain working in the Museum Conservation Workshop

Conservation of paper

Conservation of a wooden door

Auschwitz-Birkenau State MuseumOś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011

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TO SAVE FROM DESTRUCTION

At the former Nazi German Concentration and Death Camps of Auschwitz, conser-vation work that is co-financed by the European Union is under way: “The restora-tion and construction work on buildings at the former Auschwitz I site—blocks:

inventory number A-2 and A-3” and the “Conservation of five wooden barracks of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp.”

In June, another step in the conservation work was completed in Birkenau on two wooden barracks: B-210 and B-166. The first building was on the site of the so-called Family Camp for Jews from the Ther-esienstadt ghetto. During the camp’s operation, it served as a hospital bar-racks, where there were two wards: internal medicine for women with children as well as the isolation ward.The reinforced concrete foundation slabs and foot-ings have been dismantled, and the earlier excavations have been made deeper. Pillars as well as the walls made of reinforced concrete were also installed under the foundation of the build-ing. At the conservation workshops, all the wooden elements were secured, im-pregnated with protective substances reinforcing and protecting the structure of the wood structure against mold, insects, as well as fire. Work is also coming to a close on barracks B-166, which is located in sector BIIa. As in the case of bar-racks B-210, pillars and walls made of reinforced concrete were installed under the foundation of the building. Each of the the wooden el-ements was protected and the reinforced glass within

the wooden frames of the skylights was replaced.

Iga Bunalska

As the stages of restora-tion work are carried out in blocks 2 and 3 at the former Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, traces of history are uncovered each day, mainly recorded on walls of these buildings—the walls, which for years have been cov-ered by the dust of history, patiently waiting for their

moment to speak. The resto-ration work on the wall sur-faces is probably the most labor-intensive and requires the most attention. All lay-ers of paint are in fact, inch by inch, thoroughly cleaned and secured.

It is important to note that some of the conservation work is not being performed at the Museum, but off site. This is the case with, among others, the conservation of the wooden floors. The dis-assembled and properly secured floorboards were subjected to disinfection in the pressure chamber with Rotanox gas, which contains ethylene oxide. The chamber that allows for the disinfec-tion of such large items is located in Wrocław.

Another one of the conserva-tor’s priorities is to complete work on the preservation of the door woodwork. This work, in addition to cleans-ing the doors and paint as well as refilling the chips and cracks, also includes the removal of any non-original metal elements, any result-ant holes from these nails and screws, then a refitting of the locks. The historical metal parts have been pro-tected against further corro-sion.

Work continues on the up-per toilet tanks. Some of them have had their entire surface and metal parts cleaned. The ceramic ele-

ments within the building, the washrooms, toilet bowls, and heating furnaces have also been cleaned and pro-tected. Loose ceramic pieces, including tiles, as well as other damaged items inside the furnaces, have been re-paired. Metal parts have been cleaned and secured with a corrosion inhibitor. In block number 2 tests were performed to remove the secondary layers of paint from the tread surface of the terrazzo as well as the con-crete window sills, and in block 3, the whole surface of the attic ceiling was pu-rified and disinfection was carried out. The rotted out portions of the beams were removed, and the elements

were replaced using modern techniques.

It is also worth mentioning that metal support beams were added in block 2, and the foundations in both buildings were bolstered us-ing reinforced concrete ele-ments.

Monika Bernacka

The maintenance projects entitled, “Conservation of five wooden

barracks of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp”

as well as “The restoration and construction work on buildings at

the former Auschwitz I site—blocks: inventory number A-2 and A-3”

co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional

Development Fund under the Operational Program Infrastructure

and Environment 2007-2013.

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Barracks B-166

Block number 2

Interior of block number 2

Barracks B-210

International Youth Meeting Center

SEmINAR TO PREPARE YOUNG vOLUN-TEERS FROM GERMANY

NEw EDUCATIONAL OFFERING AT THE INTERNATIONAL YOUTH mEETING CENTER

The focal point of seminars organized annually by Action Reconciliation/Service for Peace is the history of the Na-tional Socialist policy of extermination and, the role of certain concentration camps in this system. In addition to spreading historical knowledge and reminding individuals of the crimes committed at various sites, participants

search for connections to contemporary world as well as to their own identity, which is an important part of preparing young people to do volunteer work for Action Reconciliation/Service for Peace in 180 locations in 13 different coun-tries worldwide.

Since the end of the Second World War sixty-six years have passed, yet still it is difficult to understand the magni-tude of the crimes committed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Death Camp. A visit to the Memorial Site evokes many emotions and raises many questions, that is why it is so important that before their visit to the

former Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Death Camp, young people have the opportunity to get to know the main components of National Socialist ideology, the legal basis for policies of repression and extermination against the Slavs and Jews, as well as consequences of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”

In Poland, three seminars are held each year for fu-ture volunteers for Action Reconc i l ia t ion/Serv ice for Peace at: the Memo-rial at Majdanek in Lublin, the Memorial of Stutthof in Gdańsk, as well as in Oświęcim.On July 10, 2011, a group of 23 young Germans, who in September start their yearlong volunteer work in various countries in Eu-rope, came to Oświęcim, so that at the International Youth Meeting Center they could take part in a four-

day project dedicated to the Auschwitz Memorial Site. Former Meeting Center volunteers, Nina Rabuza and Isabelle von Looz, led the seminar during which they were able to share their personal stories and provide the participants with valuable advice. The meeting started with an in-tegration game, which pro-vided the participants with an opportunity to get to know not only each other, but also the subject of the projects done by volun-teers. During the seminar,

the participants visited the former Nazi German Con-centration and Death Camp of Auschwitz as well as the site of the former camp in Monowice, which was ex-tremely important, since all the participants’ projects are connected to the Second World War and victims of the Holocaust. The par-ticipants also took part in workshops, conducted by current volunteers of the IYMC, Isabella Riedl and Niklas Krekeler, about the former camp in Monowice and also visited the Jewish Center in Oświęcim. There they were acquainted with

the history of the Jewish community in Oświęcim and their post-War fate. A special moment for the young people was a meet-ing with a former prisoner of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp, Zofia Posmysz, who told them her story and answered numerous ques-tions. Zofia delighted the young individuals with not only her method of narra-tion, but also her personal-ity. Although she survived terrible events within the camp, she remained a lady who possesses a great sense of humor. The meeting with her will long remain

in their memory.In the opinion of the partici-pants, the seminar was very interesting, which allowed a deepening of knowledge about the history of events that took place at former concentration camps and answered several compli-cated questions. From Oświęcim, the young volunteers made their way to Cracow, to learn the his-tory of the Jewish Ghetto in Płaszów and visit Schin-dler’s Factory.

Anna Mala, AZP volunteer from the Ukraine, 2010-2011

The Educational Department of the International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim invites groups of young indi-viduals from Poland to take part in preparatory work-shops before their visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memori-al Site, “Anti-Judaism—Anti-Semitism—Auschwitz”.

goals of the workshops:• Learning the most impor-

tant events in the history of the Jewish people.

• The presentation of the so-cial and legal mechanisms of discrimination, perse-cution, and exclusion of Jews from society in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and

twentieth centuries.• An explanation of the con-

cepts of the Nuremberg Laws, the Wannsee confer-ence, and examining select-ed documents.

• Learning the fundamentals of National Socialist ideology.

• Understanding the role of concentration and extermi-nation camps.

• Clarification and learning the concepts: anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism, accultura-tion, nationalism, aryaniza-tion, race, ghetto, pogrom, and genocide.

• Development of the abil-ity to analyze the historical facts about Auschwitz in the context of events in Eu-

rope that had taken place from the eighteenth century to the 1930s.

• Raising awareness of social actions that lead to exclu-sion and genocide.

The workshops begin with a mini-lecture about the Jewish identity until the eighteenth century, allowing for better understanding of the reasons for the beginnings of anti-Judaism. In later parts of the seminar the participants, di-vided into four groups, work on one of the following topics:1. The Birth of Anti-Semitism.2. Exclusion and Isolation.3. “The Final Solution of the

Jewish Question.”4. Concentration Camps.

Next, the groups present the work that they had ac-complished. In addition to the presentations, there is a showing of a short film about the Jewish community before the Second World War as well as fragments of the film Auschwitz, which illustrate the actions of the Nazis up until 1940. Workshops are created for young people between the ages of 15-18, who plan to visit the former Nazi German Con-centration and Death Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The workshops last between 1.5 to 2 hours. Ideally, the groups should consist of 20-25 partici-pants.

Workshop led by: Olga Onyszkiewicz

Individuals interested in the group workshops are asked to contact the IYMC by call-ing: +48 33 843 23 77 or e-mail: reservation@mdsm.pl.

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Working in groups

Seminar participants during their visit to the site of former Auschwitz-Monowitz

Action Reconciliation/Service for Peace (AZP) was founded in 1958 by the synod of the German Protestant Church as a reac-tion to the German population’s actions and attitude during the Nazi era. The purpose of the organization was to rebuild the War damage in the countries most affected by

the Nazi regime and World War II, as well as seeking reconciliation with the peoples persecuted by the Nazis. At first, the or-ganization sent volunteers to Poland, Soviet Union, and Israel. Its development has al-lowed the AZP to send volunteers to other countries, such as: Belgium, France, Neth-erlands, Norway, Britain, as well as the Czech Republic, and since the collapse of the USSR, the Ukraine. AZP is trying to co-operate with all who are in favor of a more peaceful and moral world.

aCTIOn RECOnCILI-aTIOn/SERvICE fOR

PEaCE (azP)

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This is already the 10th edi-tion of our program, the only one of its kind in Po-land, which presents the history of Jews in the broad context of the history of our country and the contact be-tween the two communi-ties. Since the opening of the Jewish Center, more than 100 young students from North America, Asia, and Europe, have visited Poland and Oświęcim, coming to the authentic historic sites to deepen their understanding of the Jewish past as well as present in our country.Participants spent nearly a week in Oświęcim, where they not only visited the site of the former Auschwitz Con-centration Camp and partici-pated in the activities of the International Center for Edu-cation about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but also got to know Jewish history of Oświęcim at our Center, the Castle Museum, and what contemporary life of the city looks like.The special events in the program included: partici-pation in the commemora-tion of the 70th anniversary of the pogrom in Kielce, and a meeting with Bogdan Białek, president of the Jan Karski Association in this city, as well as a visit to Jed-wabne, where the students participated in ceremonies commemorating the victims of murder of Jews by their neighbors during World War II. Both events were the subject of important discus-

sions about constructive ways to heal the wounds of the past and the joint commemoration of these difficult historical events. During the Bridge to His-tory project, students also participated in the meet-ing with Mrs. Mirosława Gruszczyńska, who was awarded the “Righteous among the Nations” medal by the Israeli Yad Vashem Institute for saving a Jewish girl from the Cracow Ghetto.Like every year, included in the visit were the study trips to Cracow, Warsaw and Łódź, cities of great importance in the history of Jews in Poland, as well as Polish small-town south-east: Chęciny, Chmielnik, Działoszyce, Pińczów, Tarnów, and Bobowa where one can still find traces of a Jewish presence that are preserved in various states. The students also visited

Bielsko-Biała, where they met with President of the local Jewish community, Dorota Wiewióra, as well as Pszczyna and Będzin, that has the former Nuhima Cukerman house of prayer, which has been preserved by a group of young ac-tivists. To understand the context of the Jewish past in Poland, the group also visited the places connected with the general history of our country: the Old Town in Warsaw and Cracow, the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the Museum of Chopin, and History Meeting House in Warsaw.For the first time during the Brigde to History, we visited Slovakia and its pearls of Jewish antiquities: Barde-jov with its mikvah and the Bikur Cholim and Old synagogues, as well as the synagogue in Prešov. Those houses of prayer, preserved in a state of near perfection, were deeply impressive to the participants. There was also the very moving meet-ing with Mr. Tibor Kartin, a Holocaust survivor and member of the Jewish com-munity of Prešov, who was during the War in, among others, the Dęblin Ghetto and Majdanek Concentra-tion Camp. The students unanimously emphasized that their par-ticipation in the program changed their perceptions of Poland as a place not only associated with the history of the Holocaust, but also the life and cen-turies of Jewish presence,

the people whose memory lives on, though not always consciously. “A country of contradictions” is what one participant called Poland, where caricatured figures of Orthodox Jews are adjacent to the unique monuments of Jewish architecture, careful-ly protected by a new gen-

eration of Poles—this will be a permanent memory for the young researchers of Jewish history. Some of the partici-pants have already planned to return next year to contin-ue their research work, in-cluding that in Oświęcim.

Maciek Zabierowski

What were the Jewish-Christian relations in Poland like before the war? What does the life of the Jewish Community look like after the Holocaust? Who takes care of synagogues and

Jewish cemeteries in the localities where there are no Jews? Do and in what way Poles remember their Jewish former neighbors? Answers to these and similar questions were sought by a group of 10 students from the United States and Canada who came to Poland for a three-week intensive study visit entitled A Bridge to History, organized by the Oświęcim Jewish Center.

A BRIDGE TO HISTORY

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A visit to the Jewish community in Prešov

Participants of the program at the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw

At the exhibition about rebuilding Warsaw, History Meeting House

Visiting the grounds of the former Warsaw Ghetto and presentation of archival photos on iPad

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OSHPITZIN. A GUIDE

8

HEnnEnBERg anD BOCHnER famILIES

HOUSE

Two characteristic adjacent houses, built at the turn of the 20th century, between the market squares, be-longed to the two promi-nent families in Oświęcim, the Bochners and the Hen-nenbergs. Two members of those families, Henoch Hen-nenberg and Naftali Dawid Bochner were respected citi-zens of Oświęcim and long-time members of the town council.Bochner was also the presi-dent of the Jewish communi-ty in Oświęcim and a timber mechant. He was related to tsadik Shlomo Bochner from Chrzanów. Henoch Hennen-berg produced liquors and owned a restaurant.

9SCHÖnkER vILLa

The Schönker family resi-dence was built in 1908 and located at 36 Jagiellońska Street. The Schönker family settled in Oświęcim around the mid-19th century. Their arrival to the town is con-

nected with a family legend and a Hasidic tale. The first Schönker to live in Oświęcim was Hayim Joachim, born in Chrzanów in 1810. He was a pious Hasid and disciple of Sanzer rebe Hayim Hal-berstam. The family legend says that Schönker was con-vinced by the rebe to move to Oświęcim. He was initial-ly reluctant to do so because of his piety and the fact that Oświęcim was located close to Silesia region where many progressive Jews lived. Hal-berstam urged him to settle in the town to counterbal-ance the influence of the progressives. Hayim moved to Oświęcim with his fam-ily and rented a farm from Kajetan Russocki, a former aide-de-camp of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The following generations of Schönkers contributed greatly to the economical development of Oświęcim. They were famous for their charity towards local Jews and Christians alike as well as involvement in the town council and the Jewish com-munity. Józef Schönker (1872-1945) and his son Leon (1903-1965) were also promi-nent citizens of Oświęcim. Józef was a well-known in-dustrialist who established a pesticide factory called A.E. Schönker (1905) and later renamed it Agrochemia Artificial Fertilizer Factory Ltd. He was a member of the town council, the Israelite Religious Community and the Oświęcim Savings Bank. During WWI the Schönkers moved to Vienna, where

15-year-old Leon took up his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. He continued them after the war in Am-sterdam and Paris. In 1922 he returned to Oświęcim only to move to Cracow and get involved in the local art cir-cles two years later. In 1931 he was among the founders of the Association of Jew-ish Painters and Sculptors and was eventually elected its president. He published in a number of dailies and journals, including Nowy Dziennik and Sztuka i Życie Współczesne. In 1937 the fam-ily returned to Oświęcim and Leon followed his fa-ther’s footsteps by getting involved in the political and social life of the town. In the interwar period he was

both a well-known painter and a follower of the Zion-ist movement. His paintings are on display at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and Ermitage in Petersburg. His polychromes decorated the interior of the Wolf Popper synagogue in Cracow’s Jew-ish district called Kazimierz. In 1939 Leon became the president of the Jewish Coun-cil of Elders in Oświęcim (renamed Auschwitz by the Germans) taking on re-sponsibility for the fate of the town’s Jewish commu-nity. During first months of the war he also created the Central Bureau for Emigra-tion and was involved in negotiations with Germans authorities in Berlin. In early 1940 the family was forced to escape from the town. They went through Cracow, Wieliczka and ghettos in Tarnów and Bochnia. Thanks to forged documents they found themselves in the spe-cial section of Bergen-Belsen camp as Palestinian citizens waiting to be exchanged. Af-ter the evacuation they were liberated in Tröbitz near Dresden in April 1945. After the liberation the Schönkers returned to their hometown. Leon reopened the Agrochemia factory and took the presidency of the Jewish Religious Associa-tion. He became involved in helping survivors and re-building Jewish life and the town itself. However, in 1949 the Communists confis-

cated his factory and impris-oned him as part of the war against private business. In

1955 the family was granted permission to leave the coun-try. They went to Vienna and later to Israel. Leon Schönker died in 1965 in Ramat Yosef at the age of 62.

10

BERka JOSELEWICza STREET

The Jewish Street, known also as Friedrichstrasse, Ber-ka Joselewicza and Bożnicza Street was the heart of Jew-ish religious and communal life in Oświęcim from the

Below we publish the third part of the first guide to the Jew-ish history of Oświęcim—Oshpitzin. This is the result of ten years of historical research and collecting materials by the

Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim. The publication is accompa-nied by a www.oshpitzin.pl website which presents a virtual map of the Jewish town, accounts of former residents of the town, vid-eos, photos as well as lesson plans for educators. On the next page of the magazine you can find the city map with all the objects on it.

Little Market Square with Hennenberg and Bocher families house on the right, around 1939-1941

Schönker Villa. Photo taken at the beginning of WWII. The villa housed the German Work Office.

Portrait of a woman by Leon Schönker, 1935

Charismatic leader of a Hasidic community, also known as rebbe or an admor. Accord-ing to Elimelekh of Lhi-zensk (Leżajsk), a tsadik is a kind of “channel” through which divine abundance could be brought down from the supernal worlds to our own. Most of tsadiks established dynasties, passing on the leadership to their sons, sons-in-law or leading disciples.

TSaDIk (Hebrew: righteous)

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second half of the 16th cen-tury. The street was likely

the only remaining part of the former Jewish quarter in Oświęcim. The most impor-tant Jewish institutions were located there: ritual bath (mikvah), the kosher slaugh-terhouse, the first Jewish cemetery, synagogues, and religious schools including both elementary cheders and yeshivas for Talmud studies.

11

CHURCH Of OUR LaDY HELP Of CHRISTIanS

In 1898 the Salesian Order purchased ruins of an early 14th century Dominican monastery. The renovation of the building and construc-tion of the new church was completed between 1975 and 1984.

cont.

Berka Joselewicza Street, september 1939

Jewish movement of re-ligious revival started in 18th century in Podole and Volhynia. Its found-ing has been traditionally ascribed to Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov (Mas-ter of the Good Name) of Medzhibizh (1698/1700–1760). The opponents of Hasidism were misn-agdim (Hebrew: oppo-nents) representing tradi-tional Judaism. The most famous Hasidic courts include those from Góra Kalwaria, Bobowa, Kock, Lublin, Leżajsk, Ryman-ów, Opatów, Nowy Sącz and Przysucha.

HaSIDISm (Hebrew: hasid =

pious)

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Several hundred people attended observances marking Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day on the grounds of the former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The cer-emony was held to mark the sixty-seventh anniversary of the liquidation of the so-called “Gypsy Family Camp”

(Zigeunerfamilienlager). The Nazis murdered almost three thousand men women and children in the Birkenau gas chambers on the night of August 2/3, 1944.

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Paying homage to Roma and Sinti victims during Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Camp

The participants in the com-memoration included for-mer prisoners of Nazi camps and ghettos, representatives of nineteen Roma organiza-tions, government officials including Minister Elżbieta Radziszewska representing Polish Council of Ministers President Donald Tusk and Deputy Minister of Culture Piotr Żuchowski, directors and staff of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and local government officials. Hermann Höllenreiner of Germany was nine years old in March 1943 when the Ger-

man Nazis deported him to Auschwitz, where he encoun-tered the abuse and hunger that were ever-present in the death camp and became a vic-tim of Josef Mengele’s medi-cal experiments. “The fact that we survived that cruelty and can stand here today is some-thing we owe to the soldiers of the Allied forces. Many young people from Russia, America, England, France, and other countries lost their lives in combat during the lib-eration of the concentration camps. It is just those soldiers that I want to thank and pay

tribute to from this place,” he wrote in a letter to the par-ticipants in the observances. He also appealed for the erection in Berlin of a monu-ment commemorating the extermination of the Roma. “I am 79 years old and I want to be there in person for the unveiling of this monument. As a person who survived the Holocaust, I have a right to this. We have been asking for this for eighteen years.” In the view of Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the time has come for “governments and state

organs to treat the Sinti and Roma as equal partners in the political dialogue and to cooperate with us in working out a concrete, lasting solu-tion.” He stressed that they are endangered in Europe by a “racist policy of isola-tion that extends to a growing number of countries.”Roman Kwiatkowski, the chairman of the Association of Roma in Poland, which or-ganized the ceremony, drew attention to the progressive marginalization of Roma and Sinti in many countries, even though he noted with satis-faction at the same time the acceptance by the European Union of a strategy of action in support of Roma circles.Referring to the proclamation

by the Sejm of the Polish Re-public a few days earlier of August 2 as Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day, the prime minister’s plenipo-tentiary for equal treatment, Elżbieta Radziszewska, said that, “wanting to build a bet-ter future we must always remember this day. Bowing our heads over all those who gave their lives here, let us remember that we should do everything to make sure that the words ‘never again’ are both living words and living action.”The President of the Polish Republic, Bronisław Ko-morowski, extended his of-ficial patronage over the cer-emony.

jarmen

ROMA AND SINTI GENOCIDE REMEMBRANCE DAY

Paying tribune to the Roma and Sinti, victims of the German Nazi genocide,

the Sejm of the Polish Republic proclaims August 2 as the Roma and Sinti

the Genocide Remembrance Day.

RESOLUTIOn Of THE Sejm Of THE POLISH REPUBLIC Of JULY 29, 2011

REgaRDIng ROma anD SInTI gEnOCIDE REmEmBRanCE DaY

The speach by Elżbieta Radziszewska, the prime minister’s plenipotentiatry for equal treatment

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Honoring the Roma victims by members of the TernYpe organization

Site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration and Death Camp

TernYpe – International Roma Youth Network joins Roma organizations from Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Spain and Poland. This year it organized a project to commemorate the Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day. Over 80 young Europeans of different cultures and backgrounds

participated to commemorate the extermination of the Roma during the Second World War and to discuss the rise of antigypsyism these days in Europe in a working meeting

First such meeting took place last year with over 60 par-ticipants—young Roma and non-Roma. The main pur-pose of the discussion was to develop a dialogue on the topics of xenophobia, anti-gypsyism and racism in Eu-rope today. The importance and a great impact of the “Roma Genocide” project have been appreciated by the European institutions by selecting it as one of the 27 national winning projects for the European Charlemagne Youth Prize 2011.This year the “Roma Geno-cide” project received the support of the Polish Min-istry of Equality (under the auspices of the Minister Elżbieta Radziszewska), the regional government of Małopolska, the Office for Human Rights and Demo-cratic Institutions of the OSCE and the European Roma Grassroots Organi-zation network (ERGO). This year celebration at the Auschwitz Memorial were conducted under the patron-age of Polish President Mr Bronisław Komorowski as the Polish Government made

August 2 the official Roma Genocide Remembrance Day in Poland. TernYpe hopes that other EU countries will follow the good example.Today, with the rise of xenophobia, racism and extreme-rights movements, spreading knowledge about the Roma Genocide is more urgent than ever. TernYpe believes that this project has a great impact on young people to raise their aware-ness of the past and to pre-pare them to face stigmati-zation, antigypsyism, mech-anisms of exclusion and discrimination in Europe today. This aim of this pro-ject reflects the philosophy of TernYpe to create a space for young people to become active citizens through em-powerment, mobilization, self-organization and par-ticipation. This Internation-al Roma Youth Network be-lieves in the common efforts by creating trust and mu-tual respect between Roma and non-Roma. The youth has an important role and huge responsibility in the remembrance of the genocide, since they must

learn for the future by re-membering the past, but must act in the present in order to prevent the past to repeat itself in the future!23-year old Vicente Rodri-guez from Spain is aware of his role to act in the pre-sent. Following nowadays situation of the Roma across Europe, Vicente faced a lot of questions, which no one dares to answer. He asks: ”What is the future that awaits us just around the corner from an economic crisis that has shaken the foundations of the welfare state? Did we become better Humans than 70 years ago? Has our Humanity grown? Did we change? Or rather, are we allowing politician hatred of the different, just for electoral support? How many walls and deporta-tions can support and cor-rupt our moral judgments before we react? How long can we continue to call our-selves civilized, while ‘our ”Europe continues to treat the “different,” the Roma as danger to the cultural he-gemony?”.For him as Roma “Auschwitz is still real, not like the fe-ver-dream of a madman, but as the culmination of a complex historical process that kills between 1.5 and 2 million people, mostly Jews but also prisoners of war, Poles, Roma and Sinti. All were victims of the inhuman Nazi regime during the war. Many things have changed in 70 years, but in reality the war is still present in our so-ciety… only “utopian” dec-larations were made against the human greed to over-come hatred, fear and lust for power or territory. The twentieth century became the mass grave of hope for a better world.” “Is there hope for Human-ity after Auschwitz? Do we have time to change the heart of the Europe-ans’ worldview? Will we continue to defend politi-cal classes? Or we leave the infernal bureaucracy to ex-press our common human-ity?” are just some of the thoughts Vicente has as a young person that decided to “fight” against the “Roma xenophobia” across Europe.

According to him young people these days have in their hands the key of the European future. It depends on them to walk across the door to a fairer society that keeps the memory of the past mistakes and is able to learn from them, or young people choose to cross the door that leads to the night-mare of isolation, national-ism and exclusion.The commemoration of the Roma genocide during World War II is a step of hope towards a European awareness and citizenship of all Roma and non-Roma,

as TernYpe’s campaign slo-gan already says “ALL in ONE Society!”Today, young people, Roma and non-Roma walk the path of shocking memory in order to lay the founda-tions of a future pluralistic community shield capable of serving, through its insti-tutions and consciousness of its citizens, which will prevent such terrible acts like Auschwitz from ever happening again!

Mustafa Yakupov, Macedonia

COMMEMORATION OF THE ROMA GENOCIDE FROM A YOUTH PERSPECTIVE

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The ICCJ member organisa-tions world-wide over the past five decades have been successfully engaged in the historic renewal of Jewish-Christian relations.Some 180 participants gath-ered from July 3-6 in Cracow Poland, to attend the annual conference of the Internation-al Council of Christians and Jews. This conference on “Re-ligions and Ideologies”was organized in cooperation with the Faculty for Interna-tional and Political studies of the Cracovian Jagiellonian University.The program was prepared in cooperation with the Polish Council of Chris-tians and Jews and the Center for Dialogue and Prayer in Oświęcim/Auschwitz.On Monday and Wednesday the plenary sessions were held at the magnificent aula of the Jagiellonian University, the Collegium Novum. Tuesday July 5, 2011, will in the ICCJ annals ever be re-membered as a very special

day. After a moving plenum at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer at Oświęcim, those who never had visited Auschwitz before, had a tour at Auschwitz I, which is now the Auschwitz Museum. Lat-er that afternoon we all gath-ered at Auschwitz-Birkenau for a commemorative walk, starting at the entrance of the remains of this immense extermination camp. Praying and meditating we walked along the ramp to the monu-ment near the remains of the gas chambers. We all, Jews, Christians and Muslims felt united in prayer when Chris-tians prayed together the Lord’s Prayer and Jews said Kaddish. Nobody present that day will ever forget the moment Rabbi Ehud Bandel chanted the remembrance prayer for the victims of the Holocaust.More information about ICCJ and a lot of materials of this conference can be found on the homepage www.iccj.org

The International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) serves as the umbrella organization of 38 national Jewish-Christian dialogue organizations world-wide.

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Members of the ICCJ at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau Camp

Meeting at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer

RELIGIONS AND IDEOLOGIES

There is no Auschwitz any more, thanks be to God. Nobody gets terrorized, dehumanized, killed here any more. There is only Oświęcim in Poland and it is becoming more and more a real city of peace.The memory of Auschwitz however is here, and it is very alive. It is not a closed chapter of past history which has nothing to do with us any-

more. It touches us still today very deeply. This is why most people come to Auschwitz, not to Oświęcim.

Listen to the voice of this soil. knOWLEDgEWe need to know the facts. What was Ausch- witz and what are we to remember? It is not easy to comprehend. The essentials are not vis-

ible. We see ruins, remnants after the victims, traces of an enormous organization... but we don’t see the victims terrorised, dehumanized, suffering, in despair, dying. We don’t see the hope and the inner power some had. All this we have to imagine. In Polish you say “listen to the voice of this soil” (słuchać głosu ziemi oświęcimskiej). I like this expression because

LECTURE BY REv. DR. manfRED DESELaERS, TUESDaY JULY 5, OśWIECIm

AFTER AUSCHwITz A CULTURE OF LISTENING

We are in Oświęcim, not in Auschwitz. Oświęcim is a Polish city but from 1939 to 1945 it was occupied and incorporated into the German Reich and called Auschwitz. In that city the concentration camp system and the mass murder was organized. Auschwitz therefore was in Germany, not in Poland.

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there is a personal dimension in it: this soil wants to speak; the victims have something to say to us. So we should listen, look and open our hearts wide. If we want to take the victims seriously, we should try to know what hap-pened. There is so much we should know, what we need to learn. Those who come to encoun-ter the memory of Auschwitz seek and search contact with the memorial places, with the so called museum, with the archives and with survivors. We can gather a lot of information, there is a good infrastructure for learning about Auschwitz developing all the time—and we will never come to an end. But even if we know a lot, we will never really understand. The most important is what is in-visible. We don’t see even graves. We don’t see what is missing. What does it mean that more than a million people disappeared, mostly without a trace? Once I asked Rabbi Sacha Pečarič, what Auschwitz means to him. And he began to talk to our group about what Judaism means: that God spoke to us, that His words had been written down, that we should read to one another or even better sing the words of the Bible, that we should discuss the meaning of these words similar to what happens in the Jewish schools. There were more Yeshivot in Poland than any-where else in the world, there was so much of God’s melody in the air here, more than any-where else in the world. Auschwitz means that this is gone. It’s like the coat of his children’s dead grandfather, still hanging in their apart-ment and reminding them of the love that is missing. How much is missing here?!

Listen to the voice of our own heart. REfLECTIOnAll this touches us. The memory of the past hurts us today. It’s not just a past history. The memory of Auschwitz is like an open wound. This wound is in our identities and in our rela-tionships. The memory of the painful, horrible past touches our identity, especially if there are family memories directly involved. Who am I in consequence of what has happened, of what has been destroyed? The wound in our identity is for all of us. Where would I have been at that time? On which side? How would I have behaved? Would I have had the strength not to despair, to resist, to show solidarity? Would I still believe in God, in the good of human beings? What does this all mean to me today? What are my values today? What should I do today? The memory of Auschwitz touches or causes a wound, uneasiness in us. We need to listen to the voice of our heart, we need reflection.

Listen to one another. DIaLOgUEThis has to do also with our relationships. Who am I in relationship to the others, what do the others think of me? Trust is damaged. Relation-ships are wounded or destroyed. Auschwitz is not just about the killing of people. It is first of all about the killing of relationship. The Nazis said, Poles are like domestic animals, like slaves to the German people, and if they don’t want this, they have to die. Jews didn’t even have this choice; they were treated like a disease, just to be destroyed. It was forbidden for the SS to have human feelings towards the prisoners.So healing is about the healing of relationships. I don’t believe we can heal ourselves alone, Jews alone, Germans alone, Poles alone and so on. Healing is about building trust. This needs en-counter. But to encounter we already need trust. What does dialogue mean in this context? When we don’t understand ourselves in the context of Auschwitz, we should confess that we under-stand the others even less. I’m German; I’ll never feel Auschwitz like a Catholic from Poland or a Jew from Israel. So dialogue begins with silence and listening. Listening to one another: what does the memory of Auschwitz mean to you? When you ask me, I will try to answer, what it means to me.When we touch an open wound, we are often not able to think and to discuss quietly our is-sues. We cry or shout. It is sometimes better not to touch the wound directly, but to empower the life around it. It is sometimes better to be silent than to talk. But we should know that there is a wound, and we should not run away. Dialogue in the context of Auschwitz is a dialogue of wounded people. Therefore the antechamber of dialogue is so important. Before we enter the living room of dialogue we must get the motivation to enter. We need to have places where everybody feels welcome, from different backgrounds, with his or her wounds. Places, where a basic respect for the other and for the otherness of the other is ensured. This is the most important answer to Auschwitz. Across the road from here was a place of contempt and destruction of the other. We need an environment of respect for all, where trust through face to face encounter can grow again.My dream is that people, who visit the memo-rial places of Auschwitz, also experience in Oświęcim another reality, a reality of respect and work for peace, reconciliation, and solidarity. My dream is that not Hitler, not the power of evil has the last word about Auschwitz, but the power of goodness and love.

Listen to the voice of god. PRaYERMany ask: where was God? Why did He allow

this to happen? But maybe He asks: Where were you? Why did you allow this to happen? Prayer is not easy at the edge of Auschwitz. We need silence, we need to listen to the voice of this soil, of our hearts, of one another, of the Bible. We encounter not only testimonies of loss of faith, but also testimonies of faith, even out of the gas chambers. Most of you will know Elie Wiesel’s “Night”:

“Never will I forget the flames that consumed my faith forever. Never will I forget the silence in the night, that took my lust for life away for all eternity. Never will I forget the moment that killed my God, and my soul, and my dreams which took on the face of the depraved. Never will I forget even if I am sentenced to live as long as God: Never”

The last sentence says: “even if I am sentenced to live as long as God: Never.” This means God lives. It is like a hidden confession of faith. Bro-ken is the tradition of faith, the old images, and something essentially changed: Not God will ask first, Elie where are you? First Elie Wiesel will ask Him: where have you been when my sister, my mother, my people were killed here? There is no prayer any more without the disturbing memory of Auschwitz.The question is not only if we believe or not, but also what and how we believe. Nazism was a worldview, a kind of faith, and the tradition of Christian Anti-Judaism also stands in the back-ground of Auschwitz. Prayer here demands an examination of conscience.However my experience is that Christians and Jews have much in common fundamentally, and this commonality is a help rather than a cause of separation. God created the human being in His image, and this heavenly dignity we have in common, it separates us from animals and makes us all brothers and sisters of the same heavenly parent. During the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 in Auschwitz-Birkenau there was a storm and rain and following this a rainbow appeared and stayed during the prayer of different religious representatives, Christian and Jewish. Rabbi Mi-chael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, said later: “The most important rainbow was when Benedict XVI visited Auschwitz. It came when God saw that His children are together.” Where was God in Auschwitz? He was in His children; He was their dignity and waited to be loved. He should not have been killed in them, with them. Today He again is waiting for us in the other. This is the religious background for our engagement towards a civilization of Love.

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Lecture by Rev. Manfred Deselaers

Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011 Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation

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History

PEOPLE OF GOOD wILL

FROm GANOBIS’S CABINET

One day, a friend called me from the building whole-salers, from where I often supply my company. He told me that a colleague of his is visiting him, and he has an interesting item for me. He asked me if I was interested, and of course I was. After several days he called me and told me that the man had a mys-terious object, which he had found in Oświęcim.

I proposed that we meet. When I saw what he had brought, I had no doubts—it was a remnant of the me-zuzah, a card on which a prayer is written and placed

at the entrance to a Jewish home. He found it during the renovation of a staircase in one of the town’s residen-tial buildings. When clean-ing the entrance to one of the flats, he came across the small piece of paper and de-cided to take it. I got it from him for free. Of course, I checked whether the stair-well, which he had told me so much about, had actu-ally been restored. I hope that this house still hides more of these curiosities.

Mirosław Ganobis

Born on March 17, 1921 in Brzeszcze, he was the son of Piotr and Marianna, née Malinowska. After attend-ing public school and the first year of the Konarski Coeducational Gimnazjum in Oświęcim, he transferred to the Staszic State Gimnazjum and Liceum in Chrzanów. He was a scout. In April 1940, he went to work in the metal-working-ironmongery work-shop at the Brzeszcze coal mine. He participated in the resist-ance movement under the German occupation. In the fall of 1940, he joined the Union of Armed Struggle Oświęcim District, and was active from 1941 in the Chrzanów-Siersza District. He used the pseu-donym “Szarota.” Later, he joined the socialist under-ground. He was active in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) Brzeszcze Group, whose main task was delivering help to the prisoners in Auschwitz. He began as a courier, but became leader of the group in the fall of 1942, now using the pseudonym “Boruta.”

Within the organization, he depended on young people from the local Brzeszcze com-munity, and inspired them to act to help the people im-prisoned behind the barbed wire in Auschwitz. He per-sonally contributed material aid, acquiring medicine from the General Government and smuggling it to the area around the camp. He also helped organize escapes, playing a role in getting his brother Kazimierz out of the camp in February 1943.In his work for the relief of the prisoners and in the social-ist organization, he cooper-ated with the PPS leadership, namely the Polish Socialist Party Regional Workers’ Committee in Cracow (OKR-PPS). Adam Rysiewicz (pseudonym “Skiba,” “Teo-dor”) was delegated by the OKR-PPS to work with the Auschwitz effort, and later became secretary of the OKR-PPS. He traveled illegally to the area near the camp and contacted Edward Hałoń and other socialist activists, coor-dinating their organizational work and relief efforts. In the fall of 1943, Edward Hałoń came under threat of arrest and had to leave the Brzeszcze area and take shel-ter in Cracow. There, he con-tinued his underground work within the OKR-PPS. He con-tinued to be occupied with Auschwitz matters and to or-ganize aid to the prisoners. In

mid-1943, probably in July, he joined forces with Peasant ac-tivists to create the Committee to Aid Concentration Camp Prisoners (PWOK). This committee coordinated the Auschwitz efforts of various organizations, material aid to prisoners, escapes, the pro-tection of escapees, and the documentation of the crimes being committed by the SS. Edward Hałoń also tried to help the prisoners by means of the underground press. He wrote articles for the under-ground newspaper Wolność [Freedom], and helped edit Naprzód [Forward] and the “Periodic PWOK Report” for the underground press and radio. While in Cracow, he stayed in constant contact with Brzeszcze. He served as the OKR-PPS liaison with the PPS Brzeszcze Group and the socialist underground in the region of the camp. On many occasions, he secretly made his way to the immedi-ate vicinity of the camp and personally supervised efforts to aid the prisoners. When doing so, he used the pseu-donym “Mak.” He cooper-ated with other organizations involved in the relief effort in the Auschwitz area. Secret messages from the time, sent by the resistance movement both inside and in the vicin-ity of the camp, reflect his activities; these messages can be found in the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State

Museum in Oświęcim and in his own private collection.After the war, in 1945, he passed his final school exams as an external student at the Nowodworski Collegium in Cracow before attend-ing and graduating from the Philosophical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University, while working at the same time in the Institute of National Re-membrance. In 1947-1948, he was also on the staff of Robotnik [The Worker]. As a student, he was also sec-retary general of the Union of Independent Socialist Youth (ZNMS), and later be-came secretary general of the ZNMS in Warsaw. In 1954, he became an adjunct pro-fessor and assistant profes-sor at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Warsaw, and was also on the faculty of the University of Warsaw from 1957 to 1960. He was the general director of PAN in the 1960s, secretary gen-eral of the Second Congress of Polish Science from 1971 to 1973, and the founder and director of the PAN Bureau

of Public Scientific Activity and the PAN Center for the Dissemination of Science. In these years, he published the book Scientific Societies in Poland: The Present and the Future. From 1959 to 2003, he was deputy editor in chief of the PAN quarterly Polish Sci-ence (from 1993 Science). He was the initiator and editor of many series of publications and the author of over 200 ar-ticles and studies on scientific policy, the history of science, and the popularization of sci-ence. He is still active in PAN.In 1951, he married Krysty-na Buchcar. They have two daughters, Krystyna (a thea-trologist) and Ksenia (an ar-chitect), and a son, Piotr (an architect).After the war, he was deco-rated with the Officer’s Cross and Commander’s Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn, the Grunwald Cross, and the Victory and Freedom Medal.

Sabina Senkowska

VESTIGES OF HISTORY FROm THE COLLECTIONS

OF THE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM

EDWaRD HaŁOŃ (BORn 1921)

many of my friends know that my hobby is collect-ing antiques and information relating to the history of Oświęcim. I often do business at various antiques

shows and “flea markets,” but new items for my collection reach me in a completely random manner thanks to individuals I have never met. That is what transpired this time.

The pictures show prisoners of various nationalities and ages. Because they were not functionary prisoners, they could not in any way pay for the creation of the por-trait. Jaźwiecki did not ex-pect anything in return, and he also did not present any-one with any of his works. Aware of their importance, he wanted to avoid distri-bution and destruction at all costs. Unfortunately, the first piece the artist created in Auschwitz was found by the SS under the mattress of his bunk.Jaźwiecki was sentenced to three months in the penal unit and also lost his work indoors. Regardless, after serving out his sentence he started his work from scratch.The existing portraits of prisoners by Jaźwiecki be-long to the most evocative works created in the condi-tions of the concentration camp. They distinguish themselves with an extraor-dinary eloquence, realism, and power of expression as well as the true mental state of the subject. On most of

the pieces, the camp num-ber is present. These draw-ings, therefore, show actual individuals, victims of the Nazi Concentration Camps. When confronted with pic-tures of the people before arrest or from the day of registration at the camp, they show a true physical and psychological meta-morphosis of these prison-ers

Agnieszka Sieradzka Collections Depatment, A-BSM

The portrait of Pedro Rosa is one of the 114 drawings in the Museum Collections cre-ated by Franciszek Jaźwiecki within the

concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald.

Franciszek Jaźwiecki, Portrait of Pedro Rosa, 20 x 14 cm,

KL Buchenwald 1944.

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Fragment of a mezuzot

Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011

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PHOTO JOURNAL

The Remembrance Day commemorating the Sinti and Roma Holocaust, at former site of the Nazi German Concentration

and Death Camp of Auschwitz II-Birkenau was an event in which several hundred indi-viduals took part. The ceremony was organ-ized to commemorate the 67th anniversary liquidation of the so-called Gypsy Family Camp (Zigeunerfamilienlager). Along with participants of the commemorations were, among others, former prisoners of Nazi Con-centration Camps and Ghettos, representa-tives of Roma organizations, representatives of various governments, among them Min-ister Elżbieta Radziszewska—representing Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Deputy Cul-ture Minister Piotr Żuchowski, the directors and employees of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, as well as local officials.

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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 32, august 2011