I SSN 1899- 4407
PEOPLE
CULTURE
OŚWIĘCIM
HISTORY
JANUARY 1945 AT AUSCHWITZ
THE POLISH – GERMAN PROJECT
HALLOWED BY THY NAME
no. 13 Janary 2010
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Oś—Oświęcim, People,
History, Culture magazine
EDITORIAL
On January 27, we are commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. This is an especially
important date, ending the 1,689 days
of the camp’s existence, created by Nazi
Germany, which had the dual function
of a concentration and extermination
camp. Auschwitz has become a symbol
for many religions, nationalities and
cultures, as well as a reference point for
many different currents of philosophy,
social sciences, and global politics. The
world continues to try to understand—
with varying success—lessons learned
from the history and experiences of
Auschwitz. And most importantly, the
world remembers what this means as
Editor:
Paweł Sawicki
Editorial secretary:
Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka
Editorial board:
Bartosz Bartyzel
Wiktor Boberek
Jarek Mensfelt
Olga Onyszkiewicz
Jadwiga Pinderska-Lech
Artur Szyndler
Columnist:
Mirosław Ganobis
Design and layout:
Agnieszka Matuła, Grafikon
Translations:
David R. Kennedy
Proofreading:
Beata Kłos
Cover:
MDSM
Photographer:
Tomasz Mól
evidenced in 2009, when 1.3 million
people from all continents visited the
memorial site.
Last month, we published accounts of
previous yearly commemorations; in
the January issue of Oś we will remember the last days before the liberation.
The camp was found in a state of chaos. Thousands of prisons marched out
through the gates on the evacuation
marches, the so-called Death Marches,
documents were burned, and the crematoria and gas chambers were destroyed using explosives. In the end, the
SS escaped from the camp, however, for
those prisoners left behind this did not
mean peace; German units came to the
camps and the very last minute were a
deadly threat to the prisoners. Finally,
the day of liberation came.
We recommend that you pay particular
attention to the articles about the seminars at the International Youth Meeting
Center, which was about women during the Holocaust. On the pages of the
Center for Dialogue and Prayer, we are
publishing reports from retreats, during which discussion revolved around
praying to our God, as seen by two religions—Judaism and Christianity. Also
included in Oś is a review of the play
The Wardrobe, which was performed at
the Jewish Center.
Paweł Sawicki
Editor-in-chief
[email protected]
A GALLERY OF THE 20TH CENTURY
PUBLISHER:
Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum
www.auschwitz.org.pl
PARTNERS:
Jewish
Center
www.ajcf.pl
Center for Dialogue
and Prayer
Foundation
www.centrum-dialogu.oswiecim.pl
On various occasions, from the need
to guide some around this place
because of national or church related
commemorations, in different years and
seasons—I have visited our Auschwitz
Museum.
I will describe the circumstances of one
of these visits.
In the early 1960s, summer... with
a cousin from Wrocław, who spent
his vacation with us, we were taking a
walk, as we did every day, around our
town. In the area, called Niwa, where
there currently is a roundabout, an
elegant car with Italian license plates
stopped near us. A handsome man and
an elegant lady, with Mediterranean
looks, were its passengers. After trying
to communicate in different languages,
the man in the car and my cousin
stumbled upon the French language,
in which their exchange was fluent.
The travelers asked us if we wouldn’t
guide them directly to the Museum
itself, an offer that we jumped upon
immediately—getting into the car,
because who wouldn’t have wanted to
take a ride in a luxurious Lancia during
a time when the “kings” of our roads
were inelegant Warszawas, Syrenas,
and Wartburgs?!
We are driving to Auschwitz I. The
Italian couple—he, most likely middle,
or higher class businessman and his
pretty wife, with whom I tried to
speak with in English—but our mutual
linguistic skills were almost nonexistent—she walked silently and deep
thought past the Museum’s artifacts. At
first, they were confounded by the type
and shape of the camp’s buildings: not
brittle barracks, but a city of tenements.
Piles of hair, shoes, suitcases, and
prosthetic limbs did make an impression
on them. They especially showed their
emotions in the crematorium building
and by the gallows on which the camp
commandant Hoess had been executed.
In Birkenau, they took in its enormity.
They listened to the quiet and almost
pastoral tranquility of this place...
There was high grass, birch groves,
rows of barracks, fences, and countless
ruins. The memorial had not yet been
installed.
After several hours, the couple,
Adriano Tiberini and his wife Laura
from Milan—because they finally
introduced themselves—thanked us for
the company. We exchanged addresses;
they invited us, not knowing about our
passports, foreign exchange problems,
and material inability. After some time,
we received a small package from
Milan: in an elegant case a fountain pen
and two “Parker” pens, not available in
our market. We reciprocated by sending
them an album about Polish art, which
was printed rather well for the time.
After that, there were a few more post
cards from their journeys around Europe
and ours—to the Bieszczady Mountains.
However, just as everything—it ended,
leaving a handful of good memories.
Andrzej Winogrodzki
International Youth
Meeting Center
www.mdsm.pl
IN COOPERATION
WITH:
Kasztelania
www.kasztelania.pl
State Higher
Vocational School
in Oświęcim
Editorial address:
„Oś – Oświęcim, Ludzie,
Historia, Kultura”
Państwowe Muzeum
Auschwitz-Birkenau
ul. Więźniów Oświęcimia 20
32-603 Oświęcim
e-mail: [email protected]
www.kasztelania.pl
www.pwsz-oswiecim.pl
Grounds of the former Auschwitz camp. Photo from the “Gallery of the 20th Century Collection”
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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
THE ATTENDANCE RECORD—1.3 MILLION
VISITORS AT AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL
1.3
million people from all around the world have visited the Auschwitz Memorial in 2009. This is the
record in the 62-year history of the Museum. It’s very important that the majority of visitors are
young people—pupils and students. There were over 821 thousand of them—that is 120 thousand
more than in 2008. Auschwitz Memorial has been the most visited Museum in Poland for a number of years.
“The importance of this
place in the history of the
world cannot be overestimated. It is difficult to understand the Europe today
without a thorough knowledge of Auschwitz history.
It is also difficult to understand our own contemporary responsibility, if we
do not listen to the tragedy
of the Holocaust and prisoners of the concentration
camp. That is why I do appreciate the increase of the
number of young visitors.
The future of our world is
in their hands”—said the
Photo: Paweł Sawicki
553 000
United Kingdom 75 000
Italy 63 900
France 48 300
43 500
Slovakia 42 900
South Korea 35 400
Sweden 27 100
26 700
Australia 13 500
Netherlands 11 700
11 000
Japan
8200
Danemark 6600
Canada
1 200 000
6600
Due to the huge interest in
the summer months the organization of the visits at
the Memorial was changed
temporarily at the former
Auschwitz I camp, where
the main exhibition is located. During the peak hours
only groups with a guide
could enter the site—including the groups made
up of individual visitors.
China 5600
Singapore
4800
Austria
4400
Slovenia 4000
Finland
3700
Greece
3700
Croatia 3400
Romania 3100
Portugal
3000
Other countries 66 100
Together 1 303 800
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“The solution that in certain
hours the site of Auschwitz
I camp could be visited only
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1 100 000
1 000 000
900 000
800 000
700 000
600 000
500 000
400 000
300 000
200 000
100 000
0
9
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12
13
14
15
1 303 800
Ireland
Belgium 10 000
1 130 000
Spain
Hungary 18 200
1 220 000
39 800
989 500
40 300
USA
927 000
Norway
699 700
Czech Republic
578 700
57 900
541 800
62 400
492 500
Israel
Germany
The secretary of the International Auschwitz Council Marek Zając believes
that the record number of
visitors gives us a powerful hope. “It is the hope
that the tragedy of the concentration and extermination camps will continue
to force us to ask the fundamental questions, that it
will shape the attitude of
resistance against evil and
the need to be good in next
generations”—he said.
The list of top ten countries
from which visitors come
has not changed much.
“We must certainly notice
the increase of the number
of visitors from Poland—
compared to 2008 it is over
140 thousand more. There
were also more visitors
from Israel (18 thousand
more), Italy (20 thousand
more) as well as from
France, Norway and our
southern neighbors from
Visitors at the Auschwitz Memorial
the Czech Republic and Slovakia”—said Andrzej Kacorzyk, the head of the Visi- by guided groups worked because of the protection of would not understand
tors Services Section.
really well. We will proba- authentic site of the former this symbol of the atrocibly act similarly in the peak camp, but also because of ties of the 20th century. It
“The statistics from non- months of 2010, since such a the safety of our visitors”— is worth remembering that
European countries are also system means greater com- said director Cywiński.
the most visited museum
interesting. Probably due to fort for visitors. However,
in Poland is also a world
the economic crisis and the we must be aware that if the “We should be grateful to leading exemplary institudepreciation of the dollar, attendance would increase all the people who take care tion in terms of education
we had less visitors from in the future by i.e. half a of the Memorial. Without activities and preservathe American continent, but million people, we will have the daily involvement of the tion”—said Marek Zając.
there is a constant growth of to introduce a completely Museum staff, so many peoPaweł Sawicki
the number of visitors from new system. It’s not just ple from around the world
Asia. In 2009 the Auschwitz
Memorial was visited by 35
thousand people from South
Korea, 8 thousand from
Number of visitors at the Auschwitz Memorial (2000-2009)
Japan, 5.6 thousand from
China and 4.8 thousand
from Singapore”—added 1 300 000
Andrzej Kacorzyk.
Visitors
at Auschwitz
Memorial in 2009
by country
Poland
Museum Director Dr. Piotr
M.A. Cywiński.
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
JANUARY 1945
T
his year is the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp
Auschiwtz-Birkenau. Usually, we focus on the liberation itself and the date 27 January. We will examine what
January of 1945 was like, based on the Auschwitz Chronicle, authored by Danuta Czech.
to the railroad siding, from
where it was transported to
the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. The prisoners
bored holes in the sides of the
crematorium and gas chamber buildings. They were
meant to be later filled with
dynamite.
Death march in the work by Zbigniew Otfinowski
18 January 1945
(Thursday)
In the early morning, the
evacuation of prisoners from
the women’s camp in Birkenau began. In short intervals
and accompanied by SS men,
columns of 500 women with
children were led out of the
camps. 5345 female prisoners
left the camp that day.
Abbruchkommando,
along
with 30 Sonderkommando
prisoners, who were left in
crematorium V without SS supervision and secretly joined
the evacuation column—fearing they would be murdered
in the camp. The evacuation
route led through the following towns and villages:
Oświęcim, Rajsko, Brzeszcze,
Góra, Miedźna, Ćwiklice,
Pszczyna, Kobielnice, Kryry,
Suszec, Rudziczka, Kleszczów,
Żory, Rogoźne, Rój, Rybnik,
Świerklany Dolne, Marklowice to Wodzisław Śląski.
19 January 1945
(Friday)
In the morning, at Auschwitz
I, II, III the only prisoners that
remained were those who
were unfit to evacuate the
camp and a few dozen who
stayed behind to help the sick
prisoners.
Allied air forces once again
bombed the IG Farben Industrie plant.
The sub-camps of Gleiwitz III,
Gleiwitz IV, Hubertushütte,
Hindenburg, Charlottegrube,
Althammer, Neustadt and
Fürstengrube were evacuated.
The Red Army entered Jaworzno, bringing freedom
to around 400 prisoners who
were left behind in the NeuDachs sub-camp, being that
they were unfit to be evacuated on foot.
Photo: Archive
Around 800 prisoners were
taken from the sub-camp Janinagrube and rushed on foot to
the Gross-Rosen concentration
camp. Only 200 extremely exhausted prisoners reached the In the evening all the prisoners
of the Monowitz concentration
destination.
camp (Buna) were gathered at
Every so often, a column of the roll call square. Thousand
prisoners left the Birkenau person columns were formed,
camp. In the afternoon, the to each a nurses unit was atlast column left, consisting of tached. Their path led through
about 1,500 people. The col- Bieruń, Mikołów, Mokre
umn consisted of prisoners Śląskie, and Przyszowice to
from the penalty company Gliwice.
(Strafkompanie), consisting of
around 400 prisoners including The sub-camps of Gleiwitz II,
Golleschau
young prisoners and 70 pris- Tschechowitz,
oners from the crematorium were evacuated.
In every office documents
and camp books were being
destroyed and burned.
Photo: Archive
In block 11 in Auschwitz, the
last Katowice Gestapo police
court (Standgericht) hearing
was held. Around 70 Poles
were sentenced to death—
men and women. They were
shot the next day in crematoThe head office that kept
rium V in Birkenau.
records of the prisoner
7 January 1945
population within the camp
(Saturday)
(Standesamt II) received
orders to pack up prisoner
In the Auschwitz women’s documents (death books and
camp, four Jewish women prisoner files) and load them
were hanged: Ella Gartner, into a vehicle. The SS men
Roza Robota, Regina Safir supervised the female prisand Ester Wajsblum. They oners that were made to do
were sentenced to death for this job.
helping prisoners—meme17 January 1945
bers of the Sonderkomman(Wednesday)
do who worked in the Birkenau crematoria—to make
the 7 October uprising possi- 31,894 male and female prisble. The help consisted in de- oners of Auschwitz-Birkenau
livering to the Sonderkom- stood in their respective
mando stolen explosives and camps for the last evening
ammunition from the Union- roll call.
Werke warehouses, in which
three of the women hanged Due to Richard Baer’s, Auschworked. This was the last witz SS garrison and camp
decision
execution at the Auschwitz commandant’s,
the evacuation, he ordered
camp.
personally chosen by him
15 January 1945
members of the camp staff to
(Monday)
start evacuating prisoners in
columns—mercilessly liquiThe number of prisoners at dating those prisoners who
Auschwitz-Birkenau
was tried to escape during the
15,325 males and 16,421 fe- evacuation and those who
males. The SS garrison con- tried to stay behind.
sisted of 2,474 men, as well
as of 56 women.
The sub-camps of Sosnowitz
and Neu-Dachs were evacuWork unit 104B (Abbruch- ated.
kommando Krematorium), Camp doctor, Josef Mengele
working on dismantling dismantled his laboratory in
the crematorium equipment, camp BIIf, taking with him
consisted of 70 prison- the materials he gathered
ers, former members of the from his experiments on
Sonderkommando. The dis- twins, dwarves, and disamantled equipment was taken bled individuals.
Photo: Collections Department
5 January 1945
(Friday)
A transport of evacuees from Auschwitz, January 24, 1945
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Werehouses in Birkenau on fire
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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
20 January 1945
(Saturday)
The commander of Office
WI (Deutsche Erd- und
Steinwerke GmbH-DEST) in
Oranienburg informed the
commander of the group of
W offices in the SS-WVHA
that due to war associated
events the Auschwitz camp
had been evacuated on 18
January 1945.
Nervous units of SS were
wandering around the Birkenau camp. In the morning,
one of the units entered the
BIIe women’s camp and ordered the prisoners to make
the SS men dinner, giving
them fresh poultry and a
pig. They didn’t eat the dinner, however, because they
received orders to quickly
march and escape. After they
had left, some of the healthier male and female prisoners
pried open the gate to camp
BIIe and entered the camp
manager’s office (Blockführerstube) and started to ransack the interior. Suddenly,
they noticed an approaching
SS unit, so they returned to
the camp.
21 January 1945
(Sunday)
Auschwitz main camp
prisoners came to the Birkenau camp with news that
at their camp the SS warehouses contained so much
food, that it could possibly
last several months. Immediately, a group of prisoners was organized who,
with carts, made their way
to the said warehouses,
from where they brought
two slaughtered pigs, tins
of meat, condensed milk,
macaroni, and other food
stuffs. So much food was
brought, that it could last
for one month for both the
male and female camps. Because of this, a kitchen was
organized in Birkenau.
The evacuation of the Golleschau camp was completed.
The last group of 96 sick
and exhausted prisoners,
as well as four prisoners’
corpses who died during
the evacuation, were sent
in sealed freight cars to the
sub-camp Freudenthal in
Czechoslovakia. 29 January,
the train station manager in
Zwittau informed the director of Oscar Schindler’s
ammunitions factory in
Brüssen-Brünnlitz, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen
concentration camps, that
at the train station in Zwittau there was a freight car
containing Jewish prisoners. Schindler ordered
the freight car to BrüssenBrünnlitz. Because the hinges and locks on the wagon
were frozen, it was opened
using a piece of equipment
called “Autogen”. Half of
the prisoners were found
dead in different positions,
sitting, kneeling, from, and
standing, either frozen or
starved to death. Several
dozen died after spending a
few days in the camp.
Photo: Archive
The evacuation of the Blechhammer sub-camp started.
For the road, each prisoner
received 800 grams of bread,
a portion of margarine and
artificial honey. Around
4,000 prisoners from Blechhammer, as well as from
other Auschwitz sub-camps
left the camp. Their march
led though: Koźle, Prudnik, Głuchołazy, Nysa,
Otmuchów,
Ząbkowice
Śląskie,
Świdnica,
and
Strzegom to the GrossRosen concentration camp,
where the prisoners arrived
on 2 February 1945. During
the march, the SS murdered
around 800 prisoners.
Over 200 children were liberated at Auschwitz
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22 January 1945
(Monday)
In the morning, a unit of the
SD once again came to camp
BIIf in Birkenau to arrest
Andreyev, who was sleeping,
and 5 other Soviet POWs accused of firing guns. After
leading them behind barrack
number 14, they were arranged in front of a ditch full
of water and executed.
Photo: Archive
In the morning, a unit of
the SS entered Birkenau’s
BIIf camp hospital and took
away those prisoners fit for
labor. The work they were
given was to carry corpses,
which had not been dealt
with for a week, to the area
around crematorium V.
There, the bodies were piled
in pyres that the SS men set
alight.
23 January 1945
(Tuesday)
Prisoners of the sub-camp
Laurahütte were evacuated;
they were loaded into train
cars that were waiting on the
rail platform near the metal
foundry. As the train traveled
through Silesia, it stopped in
a forest near the Rzędówka
train station. There, lay the
corpses of prisoners in the
striped camp uniforms. On orders of the escorts, the prisoners had to remove the striped
uniforms from the corpses, as
well as gather up the camp
soup bowls that were thrown
about. The corpses were most
likely those of prisoners from
the Güntergrube sub-camp,
who were murdered while
they were being transported
the same route the previous
day. The evacuation transport
continued through Katowice,
Moravska Ostrava, and Vienna to the Mathausen concentration camp. The journey
lasted five days and nights,
during which 134 prisoners
lost their lives.
1,200 prisoners were taken
from the Eintrachthütte subcamp.
A film frame from the liberation chronicle
Libiąż was liberated. In the
sub-camp Janinagrube there
were around 60 prisoners,
who were left behind during
the evacuation due to the terrible state of their health. The
Poles who lived in the vicinity of the camp were the first
to offer help to the prisoners.
The gravely ill were taken to
hospitals and those in better
health were left at the subcamp, where they slowly returned to good health.
camp. A half hour later, the
entire unit arrived and handed out the bread that they had
to the sick. The unit promised
to send army doctors to the
sub-camp. The same day,
a military doctor, whose rank
was captain, arrived in Monowice and started to organize
relief. All together, out of the
850 sick left behind during
the evacuation from the subcamp, over 200 prisoners died
on 27 January.
At 14:00 a unit of SD arrived
at the women’s camp BIIe, as
well as the men’s camp BIIf
in Birkenau, and ordered all
Jews to come out of the barracks. In camp BIIf, Kapo
Schulz, identified and forced
Jews out of the barracks. The
Jews were taken outside the
camp gates, around 150 males
and 200 females. Several Jews
were taken behind the Blockführerstube barrack and shot.
In the afternoon, Soviet soldiers headed toward the
region of the Auschwitz
Stammlager and Birkenau
camp; the first of them encountered resistance put up
by retreating German units.
In the direct fighting to liberate the camps of Monowitz,
Auschwitz-Birkenau, town of
Oświęcim and its surroundings, all together 231 Soviet
soldiers lost their lives—two of
those were killed just outside
the Auschwitz Stammlager
gate. One of them was Second
Lieutenant Gilmudin Badryevich Bashirov.
Another SD unit entered the
Auschwitz Stammlager. All
sick prionsers were told to
leave the blocks and come
near the gate with the sign
“Arbeit macht frei”. German
citizens were told to stand
in the front, behind them the
rest of the non-Jews, and finally the Jews. The Jewish
and non-Jewish prisoners
who could not walk were
left aside, separately. While
the prisoners were being divided into groups, a vehicle
full of SS men arrived. After
exchanging a few words, the
leader of the SD unit ordered
the prisoners back to their
blocks. The SD unit hurriedly
drove away, along with the
SS men.
In the afternoon, an SS unit
arrived at the BIIf camp infirmary in Birkenau, and ordered prisoners to bring the
bodies of the Soviet POWs
shot by crematorium V. The
bodies were piled on a pyre.
That evening, the SS men
set the pyre, containing the
POWs and prisoners, ablaze.
Next, they set fire to the 30
warehouse buildings in the
Effektenlager. Prisoners in
camp BIIf formed a team of
healthy prisoners whose job
was to make sure that the
26 January 1945
wind didn’t spread the fire
(Friday)
to the camp infirmary, separated from the Effektenlager
At 1:00 at night, a unit of SS
by a few dozen meters.
whose job was to destroy
criminal evidence blew up
25 January 1945
crematorium number V in
(Thursday)
Birkenau, which was the last
SS-Gruppenführer Richard one left standing.
Glücks, head of office D in
27 January 1945
the SS-WVHA received the
(Saturday)
medal “Deutsches Kreuz in
Silber” for organizing war
defenses by managing 40,000 Saturday, at around 9:00 in
SS men, who guarded 15 the morning, the first Soviet
large concentration camps soldier from the reconnaisand over 500 sub-camps that sance unit of the 100th Infanin total held around 750,000 try Division appeared at the
hospital in the Monowitz subprisoners.
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At 3:00 in the afternoon, the
first groups of Soviet reconnaissance troops entered
the camps in Brzezinka and
Oświęcim, where the liberated prisoners joyfully greeted them. After removing the
mines from the surrounding area, soldiers of the 60th
Army of the First Ukrainian
Front, brought freedom to
the prisoners still clinging to
life. At the main camp lay 48
and in Birkenau 600 bodies
of male and female prisoners,
who were either shot by the
SS or died in the last days of
the camps existence.
The moment Red Army soldiers entered Auschwitz I, II,
and III there were over 7,000
sick and exhausted prisoners
in these camps. According to
findings by Dr. Otto Wolken,
who stayed at the camp as a
doctor and was one of the first
organizers of help for prisoners and was one of the first to
safeguard evidence that documented the crimes committed
by the SS at Auschwitz-Birkenau, there were: 1,200 sick
prisoners in Auschwitz, 5,800
in Birkenau, of which 4,000
were women, and 600 sick
and ill in Monwitz.
International Youth Meeting Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
EUROPEAN CONVERSATIONS
WITH WOLFGANG TEMPLIN
O
Wolfgang Templin was born
in 1948 in Jena (in former
East Germany). He studied,
among other things, philosophy. In the 1970s he was a
young communist activist
and secret collaborator with
the Stasi (1970-1974). At the
beginning of the 1980s, he
left the party and became involved in the human rights
movement in East Germany.
He co-founded the opposition group “Initiative for
Peace and Human Rights
(Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte). East German
authorities forced him to
move to West Germany. After the changes in 1989, he returned to his roots and took
part in the group “Alliance
90” (Bündnis 90). To this
day, he works on shedding
light on the history of Easter
Germany. He does so as a researcher and in co-operation
with the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives
(BStU). On the 6 November
2009, this opponent of the
East German regime received the Dialogue Prize.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, and
in Hungary that had been
striving for years. He emphasized that“ everything started in Gdańsk, and the role
of Solidarity in the process of
democratic change in Europe
cannot be overemphasized.”
Another part of the discussion were the repercussions
in Europe tied to the events
of 9 October 1989. Emphasis
was placed on the paradox
that the fall of the Wall was
accompanied by tension and
a rift in German-German relations, which had an impact
on, among others, the differing economic situations and
disputes about the poltitics
of history, as well as in the
context of the vetting and accountability for the period of
communist dictatorship.
An interesting issue was the
double entanglement of East
Germans: both in the National-Socialist past (40 years of
historical lies and silence), as
well as in active participation
in the structures of the police
state.
Lively discussion, in which
the Polish-German audience
participated, complimented
the important topics raised
by Wolfgang Templin. The
special character of this meeting was the consequence
of the array of participants:
a group of police officers
from Düsseldorf, a group of
young people from Rostock,
the citizens of Oświęcim and
the surrounding county, as
well as volunteers and employees of the IYMC.
Photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
Photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
n December 4, the International Youth Meeting Center
in co-operation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
in Poland and the House for Polish-German Co-Operation invited German dissident, Wolfgang Templin. The meeting, entitled 1989. Fall of the Iron Curtain. Berlin without the Wall.
Europe without walls? took place as part of the series of European
Conversations at the IYMC.
The European Conversations at
the IYMC are a series of meetings that have taken place a
number of years, to which
the IYMC invites well known
personalities and authorities
from the world of culture,
politics, and social life. During the discussions, current
issues are discussed along
with their problems and
threats, as well as opportunities and hopes. Participants of
European Conversations have
so far been: Prime Minister
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Hans
Koschnick, British writer
or Japanese descent Kazuo
Ishiguro, Professor Reinhold
Würth, art expert and philanthropist, Professor Józef
Szajna - former prisoners
of the concentration camps
Auschwitz and Buchenwald,
painter, screenwriter, director, and playwright, as well
as Zofia Posmysz—prisoner
of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück,
and Neustadt-Glewe, jour-
nalist, writer (of works Passenger and Holiday on the
Adriatic), author of radio
programs and reports. The
organization of European
Conversations at the IYMC
has been supported from its
beginning by the Town and
County of Oświęcim.
Leszek Szuster
Photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
While leading talks with
his German guest, Leszek
Szuster, introduced Wolfgang Templin’s biography,
and highlighted how little
is known of the opposition
against East Germany in
the consciousness of Poles,
as well as the real need to
“debunk” the stereotypes
of Polish-East German relations. During the meeting, there was a discussion,
among other things, about
the change in the mentality
of Germans following the
fall of the Berlin Wall. Templin said that the symbolism
of this event was crowned by
the democratic opposition in
Wolfgang Templin
Openning the meeting
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International Youth Meeting Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
TWO PEOPLE, ONE PHOTOGRAPH
THE POLISH-GERMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT
O
n November 23 we welcomed yet another group of seminar participants at the doors of the IYMC. Together with a group of German youth from Zedenik, near Berlin, and young Poles from Siemiatycze, we
started a seven-day project entitled: Two People, One Photograph.
This third artistic project
has been done in co-operation with the Model—Art—
Space—Remembrance Project.
This time, photography
was to play the biggest role:
the taking of photos was to
make it possible for young
people to personally come
in contact with history, confront it on the site of the
former Auschwitz-Birkenau
camp and to learn to cope
with the learned facts.
Brigit Kammerlohr, artist
from Berlin, taught the participants the secrets of photographic techniques and
led the workshop in such
a way that the young people could find within themselves both the artist and
photojournalist. During the
project, photographing was
to become a passion for each
of the participants.
The photography was to fulfill many functions during
the several-day program:
the camera functioned as a
tool for getting to know and
discovering the authentic
site, while at the same time
searching for and finding,
in the context of this place,
another person. The finished photos showed the
experience and emotions
of the participants. At the
same time, the integrating
aspect of the meeting of
young Poles and Germans
was not irrelevant. The
photography was excellent at playing the role of a
middleman, communicator
between the participants,
who while photographing
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were observing, documenting gestures with the camera and, creating portrait
photos. The title Two People,
One Photograph is the short
explanation of the project’s
concept. The Polish-German
pairs received one camera and worked together
throughout the entire workshop from searching for
themes, choosing pictures,
to the form of presentation
of their work. Each pair, in
the end, created their own
work. As a result, the exhibition was created in the
photomontage style and the
pictures were cut out for
newly created dioramas.
The photos in the dioramas
tell us about boys and girls,
Poles and Germans, about
their contact with and understanding of history, as
well as their meeting here.
During projects: either the
photography or earlier
ones—such as the writing
workshop, the September
one about artistic freedom
that included young people taking part in theatrical
work—art is never the only
goal but only a pretext to
get to know history, meet
other young people, and get
to know their differing perspectives on history. Once
again this type of work has
proven itself to be an effective educational help.
Artistic work cannot be a
substitute for real historical
knowledge, so the program
also includes a tour of the
Museum. An especially important part of the program
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is a meeting with a former
Auschwitz prisoner. Invited
to speak this time was Wilhelm Brasse, who worked
in the camp records department as a photographer and
took pictures when ordered
by the SS to do so. The
young people were moved
by the fact about how the
concentration camp experience and the work he did
there had an impact on the
postwar life of Wilhelm
Brasse, who never returned
to his passion—photography.
Much of what we know
about concentration camps
comes from historical photographs. That’s why we
also decided to take a look
at the documentary photographs, which are found in
the collection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archive. During the
workshop, the young participants were confronted with
the question of the link between the photograph and
the object, the moment, and
situation that has been captured. The participants tried
to categorically present copies of the historical photos
from the perspective of why
they were taken, as well
as who was photographed
and who the photographers
were. Next, participants received information in the
form of documents, prisoner
testimony, as well as historical research that gave them
more information about the
topic of a group of related
photographs.
that I want to remember about
Auschwitz and remember those
who lost their lives here. I was
able to take photographs of objects, people, those that were
important to me, and then put
The participants, prepared
in this manner, could visit
the terrain of the former
concentration camp and
look at the pictures familiar to them from the exhibit
from a different perspective. At the same time, they
were equipped with single
use cameras: they could
photograph the objects,
which were the backdrop
to their personal experiences and emotions. One of
the participants following
the seminar wrote: Creating
a collage of photographs, I had
taken myself, helped me show
that, which was so terrifying
in the camp. Simultaneously,
I could show my sorrow and
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the pictures together to my liking, trying to create some kind
of a story and at the same time
show my feelings at the given
time.
Teresa Miłoń-Czepiec
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
AUSCHWITZ AND THE HOLOCAUST FROM
THE PERSPECTIVE OF WOMEN
T
he history of women in concentration and death camps has so far been collected and studied in a fragmentary
way. Women and men in the camps found themselves in the same living conditions, however the level of
terror that existed there differed for the various prisoner catagories, and the prisoners’ sex also determined
how it was experienced.
The seminar started with
friendship building and integration activities for the
Polish-German group: getting to know each other in
the context of one’s biography, similarities and differences between us considering social and background
“Gender” refers to the socially shaped roles of women
and men, which are assigned
according to sex. In Polish,
the word “gender” is often
explained as the identity
of the sex. The role of the
sexes depends on the existing socio-economical, political, and cultural context.
Other factors also have an
influence on it, for example,
social class, sexual orientation, and age. Sexual roles
are ingrained and can differ
greatly between cultures, as
well as within a single culture. Sexual roles are malleable, however biological sex
cannot change.
Photo: Paweł Sawicki
During the seminar, participants analized the topic both
from the perspective of the
female perpetrators, as well
as victims of National Socialism. They also had the
extraordinary experience to
speak to a witness of historical events, Zofia Posmysz,
former prisoner of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and
Neustadt-Glewe, who after
the war became a respected
writer and radio journalist.
differences, we analyzed
what shapes our identity
and what role “gender”
plays in it.
In the Polish-German groups
we discussed our experiences so far connected with the
topics of National Socialism
and the Holocaust, with emphasis on the differences in
family narratives, historiography, and pubic debates in
Poland and Germany. These
activities allowed us to build
between ourselves an atmosphere of mutual trust
and understanding, which
led to more intense work on
the topics during the entire
week of the seminar. Before lectures, presentations,
tours, film viewings, analysis of archival documents,
and meetings with witnesses to history, we asked
ourselves: what role did the
category of “gender” play
in the racial assumptions of
National Socialism? Did, and
Photo: IYMC
The seminar Auschwitz and
the Holocaust from the Perspective of Women, which took
place 21-29 November 2009,
was organized by the IYMC
for the fifth time. This year,
23 students from Poland
and Germany were invited
to work together during the
seminar. The topic of the
seminar was connected to
research, which is opening
new and wider perspectives in how women’s fate
is viewed with the backdrop
of the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust.
Here, two questions can be
reflected upon—the question about the role of women
and their involvement in the
apparatus of the Nazi regime
and about the meaning of
their presence in the structure of concentration and
death camps.
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Zofia Posmysz, former prisoner of Auschwitz
to what degree, the category
of “gender” play a role in the
definition of perpetrator and
responsibility for National
Socialist crimes? Is including the category of “gender”
justified in research on Nationalism Socialism and the
Holocaust?
We started the analysis from
the perspective of female
perpetrators. The first lecture
was given by a political scientist from the University of
Leipzig, Dr. Elisabeth Kohalhass, who shed light on the
place women held in German society during National
Socialism and with particular emphasis on motivations,
tasks, and responsibilities of
women in the structure of the
NS regime and in the Gestapo.
Participants of the seminar
were next acquainted with
the biography of selected SS
female overseers, and their
role and duties in the Auschwitz concentration camp
structure. Halina Jastrzębska
from the State Museum
Auschwitz-Birkenau did a
presentation on this topic.
The victims’ perspective
opened with the showing of
the extremely realistic film
entitled The Last Stage, made
in 1947 by a former prisoner Wanda Jakubowska.
A study tour of the former
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ZOFIA POSMYSZ
Zofia Posmysz (born in 1923 in Cracow) is an author
of four books about Auschwitz: Pasażerka (1962),
Wakacje nad Adriatykiem (1970), Ten sam doktor M.
(1982) and Do wolności, do śmierci, do życia (1996).
A long time passed before Zofia Posmysz decided to
write her first novel about the camp. After the time
spend in camps—from Auschwitz she was evacuated
to Ravensbrück, and then to Neustadt-Glewe—she
tried to make up for the lost time and complete her
education. When the war broke out Zofia Posmysz was
a student of high-school of commerce. The arrest and
imprisonment (first at Montelupich prison in Cracow,
and then concentration camps) interrupted her illegal
education. As she could not find work in Cracow after
the war, she moved to Warsaw. She graduated in 1946
and later received her diploma of Polish Philology at
Warsaw University. She started work at the literary
section of Polish Radio. She has worked on numerous
radio plays and features that later became a starting
point of interesting extended pieces of literature. Theme
of the camp first appeared in a radio play Pasażerka
which later, after many changes, was published as
a book in 1962.
concentration camp, lectures
on forced prostitution in the
Third Reich, among others,
and individual work with
archival documents showing
women’s participation in the
camps and in the resistance
movement near them, deepened the knowledge of the
participants and prepared
them for a meeting with a
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witness to events, Zofia Posmysz.
With great interest, participants listened to Joanna Ostrowska’s lecture, a PhD from
Jagiellonian University Jewish
Studies department in Cracow, on the subject of: Prostitution as forced labor for women in
Nazi concentration camps.
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
FRAGMENT OF DR. ELISABETH KOHLHAAS’ LECTURE
(…) If we want to measure the
degree of women’s participation in the National Socialist
regime and their contribution
to the politics of repression
and racial policy, we must
look through the magnifying
glass at their activities in the
public realm: especially their
professional activities and
those relating to the mobilization for war (those German
women, who did not suffer
repression and functioned as
“Aryan” women in that society. [Volksgemeinschaft −
note E. P.])
willingness to leave factory
and office jobs to further
their professional careers (…).
These activities, outside the
home, shaped women’s role
in the system (…).
Today, we know that during
National Socialism women
were active subjects, responsible and active in a wide and
varying spectrum. That is,
in the spectrum, which was
far wider than the sphere of
marriage and motherhood assigned to women. In almost
every place where repression
and murder took place womResearch on the history of en were present.
women on this topic took off
at the beginning of the 1990s. The focus of research in recent
Earlier, that is in the 1980s, years is the issue of women
research into women’s his- and the SS, especially those
tory caused an eruption of a who worked as SS female
so-called “female historian’s overseers in concentration
dispute”. This had to do with and extermination camps,
the morally based question: primarily in the women’s
Did women play an active concentration camp in Ravenrole during National Social- sbrück. The Waffen SS emism and can they share the ployed these women. They
responsibility for National were not members of the
Socialist crimes? The assump- SS, which is why we mainly
tion was contrary to that call them SS female oversewomen should be seen first ers (SS Aufseherinnen). The
of all as victims of extremely research has lead to the creapatriarchal and oppressive tion of a new and permanent
exhibition on the subject of
system.
these women’s service at the
At the start of the 1990s the Ravenbrück Memorial Site.
perspective on the history In total we are talking about
of women changed about around 4,000 SS female overhow they are seen during the seers. The newest research
times of National Socialism. also describes the so-called feHistorian Gisela Bock put male SS helpers (SS Helferinthis changed perspective this nen) and wives of SS men. Reway: It is apparent… that in search is currently available
most cases, the active partici- about a group of specially
pation of women in National ideologically trained women:
Socialist racial politics was in the spring of 1942, a female
part of their activities outside SS group was formed, the sothe home: their leading role called female SS helpers corps
in women’s and girl’s organi- (SS Helferinnenkorps). To
zations, their better or worse achieve this goal, a training
professional activity, or their center for female SS liaisons
These girls and young women worked in preschools, as
teachers, advisers in villages
that were in the territories
incorporated into the Third
Reich and the occupied Polish
territories, where the goal
was the practical implementation of the policy of Germanization. They belonged to
the League of German Girls
(BDM) and National Socialist
Women’s League (NS Frauenschaft), or they did service
in the east as students. They
helped the so-called Volksdeutsche take residence in
the “cleansed” homes that
had belonged to Jews and
Poles, they supported and
educated them in the spirit
of National Socialism, organized preschools, and taught
in schools. It is impossible to
determine the exact number
of these women.
Finally, recent research on
the topic of so-called female
Wermacht helpers (Wehrmachthelferinnen) should be
mentioned. This was a large
group, we can assume, that
it consisted of around 500,000
women functioning as typists, telephone operators, telegraphers, and supported
the Wehrmacht during the
war in all of Europe. These
women are considered to
have taken an active and indirect part in the war. Recently,
an interesting text was found
describing the work of these
women, as the phenomenon
of “the expansion of women’s help”. This shows that
women’s contribution to the
Nazi regime, the Holocaust
and the war remained in the
classically feminine sphere of
assistance, but the definition
of that assistance in terms of
National Socialism strongly
changed, taking on a pathological form.
Another interesting group
worthy of attention are women employed by the Gestapo.
This group of women contributed to persecution and
Nazi racial policy by doing
seemingly trivial professional work. These women
were clerks in offices and in
the administration. It would
be a mistake to treat women
working in the services of the
Gestapo only as cogs in the
machine. At the same time,
we would trivialize their role,
IYMC, participants started thanks to the financial supto prepare a Polish-German port of the Polish-German
publication, which will ap- Co-operation Foundation.
Ela Pasternak
pear in September of 2010,
Photo: IYMC
trail of Cracow’s Polish and
Jewish emancipated women.
Following the end to the intensive seminar work at the
The female SS unit was to be a
sort of convent within the Sippengemeinschaft SS—in total,
around 3,000 so-called female
SS helpers. Recently, there
have also been discussions—
taking into account the perspective of “gender”—about
women who took part in the
German occupation in Eastern Europe. Elisabeth Harvey’s work should be noted
here on the subject of the socalled people’s political service (“volkstumpolitischer Einsatz”) performed by young
German women fascinated
by the ideology. Harvey’s research is entitled Women and
the Nazi East. Agents and Witnesses of Germanization.
Photo: IYMC
The seminar ended with a
trip to Cracow, where representatives of the Women’s
Space Foundation led us on a
was established in Elsass.
In this school, following the
guidelines, specifically chosen women were prepared to
work in the professional and
private sphere within the socalled Sippengemeinshaft SS
Heinrich Himmler, the leader
of the SS, wanted to form a female SS unit that was unquestioning, loyal, and brimming
with the ideals and spirit of
National Socialism.
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position, and work relieving
them of responsibility. For
most of these women, they
work they did in the service
of the Gestapo were not duties that were performed in
extraordinary circumstances.
This would have been the
norm for them; normal work
that gurenteed a good salary
and a stable job in the security services, was attractive
work. The women working
in the Gestapo were not the
deciding actors in the workings of the organization. They
took part in the functioning
of the police apprentice from
a lower level. They had a secure place in this organization, which could not have
functioned without them.
They also made decisions in
the position of subordinates
about the spheres of activities
and the possibilities of decisions made.
The participation of women
in the National Socialist system was different than that of
men. They took on different
activities, women worked as
subordinates in the hierarchy
and their work was characterized by less physical violence.
These contributions consisted
not only of bureaucratic activities. These conclusions
lead us to consider women’s
clearly shared role as perpetrators. In the case of men
and women operating in the
Nazi dictatorship, including those women working in
the Gestapo, the statement
by Hanna Arendt is justifyable: In the Third Reich, there
were not many people who
whole heartedly supported
the later crimes of the regime,
however, there existed a huge
number of those who were
absolutely ready to support
the regime. (…)
The seminar was made possible
through the financial support
of Polish-German Youth
Co-operation.
Jewish Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH THE EYES
OF YOUNG PEOPLE—A DIFFERENT
PERCEPTION, BUT THE SAME MESSAGE
PART 2. OPINIONS OF FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS ABOUT THE REMEMBRANCE
OF THE HOLOCAUST IN FRANCE AND AUSTRIA
D
uring the recent commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War
we noticed how differently those events are viewed in different European countries. This inspired me
to discuss this with seven volunteers representing four European countries. I wanted to get an answer
to the question of how the subject of the Holocaust, as well as other events that occurred during the World
War II are seen in their countries. I was also interested in the way the general influenced perception in their
given countries the impact of volunteering at the memorial site.
rently work in Oświęcim
as volunteers—the first two
in the Jewish Center and
the third at the AuschwitzBirkenau State Museum.
Thomas studied foreign
languages, with an emphasis on inter-cultural relations and international cooperation, in his hometown
of Lille before he became
a volunteer at the Jewish
Center. While studying he
also worked as a city tour
guide. In his work he met
many tourists from various
countries and often had to
answer many questions
about the large number of
foreigners in Lille. These
questions, mainly from
young people, gave the
impression of hostility to
foreigners and the fear of
the unknown. In his opinion, their attitude was influenced by the views and
politics of far right political
parties. He heard about the
Jewish Center in Oświęcim
from an acquaintance and
decided immediately to
devote his time to political
education within the European Voluntary Service. So,
this “newly minted” graduate came to Oświęcim. The
tragedy that took place in
Auschwitz clearly shows
where racism and xenophobia can lead—and that
is how Thomas justifies the
choice of this place.
In France, during the Second World War, people
didn’t really have a clear
idea what they were supposed to do and how they
were to approach the German occupiers. “After the
liberation, it turned out
that all the citizens were
against the occupation and
were willing to fight,”says
Thomas. In his opinion the
building of national identity in France is too concentrated on emphasizing the
merits of the brave people
who stood up to the terror
of World War II. Ignoring
the fact that in addition to
“wicked
collaborators,”
the majority of society was
completely passive and invested all their energies in
taking care of only themselves—“just to survive.”
After losing the battles in
1940, France, until the Allied invasion, remained
passive and divided. The
Vichy government was
brought into being and
controlled the “free” part of
France, while cooperating
with the German occupier.
Under the leadership of the
deputy prime minister and
Marshal Philippe Pètain,
who
was
sympathetic
to Hitler, they signed a
ceasefire on June 22, 1940
and gave up nearly 2/3 of
French territory to be under German occupation.
In 1942 they “recruited”
thousands of forced laborers to work for the Third
Reich and helped register,
arrest, and deport Jews
who lived in France (the
deportation of French
citizens who were of the
Jewish faith was moved to
1943). Already in October
of 1940 in Vichy, there was
a host of discrimatory laws
in place against French
Jews. Most French were,
of course, against this and
answered the call of General Charles de Gaulle,
who, from London, appealed for an uprising. As
a result, from May of 1943
various insurgent groups,
cooperated with the National Resistance Council
(Conseil National de Ré-
Photo: Babsy
Understanding of the various events of the past, the
so-called culture of memory, depends on the extent
as well as form of public
exposure of the specific historical event. The next most
important element shaping
the culture of memory is the
way that the role of a given
society is looked at historically. This causes the rise of
a variety of national myths.
The culture of memory also
depends on evolutionary
changes, which can in effect
be a breakthrough in the
way history is perceived.
The second part of this article about a nation’s cultural memory is based on
conversations with Thomas
(France), Daniel (Austria),
and Sebastian (Austria).
These young people cur-
Center of Remembrance in Oradour
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sistance).
When the Second World
War ended in France, there
were many trials against
collaborators, who were
found guilty; among them
were members of the Vichy
government. Museums and
anniversaries commemorate the heroic deeds of the
population active in the resistance movement and the
many victims of Nazism. In
addition to the commemoration on January 27 of the
International
Holocaust
Remembrance Day, France
commemorates the anniversary of the deportation
of French Jews by the Vichy
government. This occurs on
a Sunday in mid-July, and
recalls the victims of racist and anti-Semitic crimes
of France. („La journée nationale à la mémoire des
victimes des crimes racistes et antisémites de l’État
français”). Remeberance of
the Holocaust is on a large
scale in France, which is
noticeable both in art, as
well as in history lessons.
“What I would have preferred to from my teachers,
however, would have been
an explanation of how such
unforgettable crimes could
have even taken place. In
general, how did people
such as Hitler rise so quickly to power in such a short
amount of time and make
the anti-Semitic policies,
so hostile to humanity, so
popular?” said Thomas.
These words can be aimed
at history teachers in all
countries.
Toward the end of the interview, Thomas stated
proudly that public lies
about the Holocaust, as
well as racist and anti-Semetic excesses are severely
punished in France. He is,
however,
disappointed
that ever since September
11, 2001, there has been a
rise in attacks on Jewish, as
well as Muslim institutions,
and that the conflict in the
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Jewish Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
The volunteers from Austria
are of the opinion that during the Second World War,
their society was mainly on
the side of the perpetrators.
Twenty two–year–old Daniel and nineteen–year–old
Sebastian decided to volunteer in Oświęcim—the
former at the Jewish Center
and the latter at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Both feel a historical
responsibility to work in
these types of institutions.
The Second World War,
in all its horrifying detail,
is not just present in their
grandparents’ or greatgrandparents’ stories, but
also a part of their country’s
political culture.
The effects of the AustroHungarian Empire and the
“great depression” that
swept the world caused
the rise in political extremism in the inter-war period.
After Mussolini came to
power in Italy in 1935, the
country became more isolated from other countries,
while strengthening its contacts with Hitler, the influence that the Third Reich
had on the spheres governing (Austria) grew. After
Austrian nationalists found
themselves in key political
positions, the annexation
of Austria into the Third
Reich could happen without a conflict. Many Austrians accepted this event
positively. In the following
years, German Nazis murdered around 65 thousand
citizens of Jewish descent,
as well as 12.7 thousand
who were against the regime and insurgents. Over
8 thousand Roma and Sinti,
homosexuals, and disabled
individuals, were also not
spared. Around 100 thousand people took part in
the fight against Nazism,
but some seem to forget
that a large percentage of
the population worked for
the occupier. War criminals
can also be found among
Austrians. Even the civilian
population took part in attacks on the Jewish minority. Many citizens quietly
hoped that through national organization, but also,
“by their own initiative”
they could improve their
own financial situation.
After the end of the Second
World War in the wave of
denazification, over 200
high-ranking SS functionaries were put before the
court and removed from
government functions. For
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a long period of time, the
“victim myth” dominated
society—that Austria was
the “first victim” of Nazi
aggression—was
finally
somewhat put into perspective at the end of the 1980s.
A deciding moment turned
out to be a major scandal,
that involved presidential
candidate, later president,
Kurt Walheim, who during
the Second World War was
an officer in the Wermacht
and took part in war crimes
in the Balkans. Sebastian
and Daniel feel that since
the time of the scandal, remembrance of WWII seems
to be more alive and far
reaching.
The young volunteers emphasize that the culture of
memory is properly treated
in Austria. It is significant
to note the fact that virtually every student is required to visit the site of the
former concentration camp
at Mauthausen. In addition,
the International Holocaust
Remembrance Day is commemorated there, and for
reflection there are also a
number of memorials, places of national remembrance,
exhibits and documentary
films that are available all
year long. The subject of the
Holocaust also affects the
alternative culture scene.
Daniel notes however, that
sometimes artists use provocative subjects, looking
for “cheap exposure.”
Photo: Rachel
Middle East has escalated.
These incidents are used
by far-right populists, who
use them to lay blame on
the Muslim minority group
and other immigrants.
Holocaust Memorial in Vienna
Daniel believes that in
Austria, not everyone is
yet prepared to face history head on. In some small
towns there are protests
against building stones
of remembrance (Stolperstein), which were mentioned in the last article.
Indeed, not everyone saw
this act of commemorating
the victims of Nazism as
necessary. Sebastian points
out that people, especially
the older through their own
direct or indirect support
for the SS, are reminded of
their guilt. He mentioned
that there has been a public debate recently in Austria concerning the sense of
punishing of elderly and often sick war criminals. This
discussion was brought
about by the case of John
Demjanjuk, who was accused of co-operation with
the Nazis. Daniel, summing
up, notes that in Austria because of their participation
and often unspoken, public
opinion on the distinction
between perpetrators and
victims of conflict is divided. As opposed to Austria,
other European countries
can feel that they were victims of Nazism to a greater
degree.
Julia Preidel
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
“WHERE TO, WHERE TO? WHERE TO?...
STRAIGHT AHEAD.” IN OTHER WORDS,
WHAT WAS LEFT OF IN US THE WARDROBE
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here are many items that, to us, can symbolize the Holocaust. Such a symbol may be an empty suitcase,
a yellow patch in the shape of the Star of David, or the recently stolen (and luckily found) sign “Arbeit macht
frei”. We will find more of these symbols. Ana Nowicka and Monika Kufel: director and actor, respectively,
of the monodrama that was put on for Oświęcim residents December 9, 2009, at the Jewish Center shows that the
symbol can also be a simple Wardrobe.
award at the International
Festival “European Actor”
in Macedonia (2005), the
Festival of Modern Drama
in Warsaw (2005), recognition at the Festival of
Unique Theater in Lublin
(2006), and so on. However,
these awards are not what
make The Wardrobe. It is the
reactions of audiences that
do this better.
Photo: Tomasz Kuncewicz
The authors of The Wardrobe
emphasize that for them the
realness of The Wardrobe,
are moments when—after it is over—people approach them, those who
lived through the nightmare of war and have truly
found themselves in this
play. Monika Kufel tells of
a situation that took place
in Oświęcim. When The
Wardrobe came to an end,
a certain older gentleman
approached her and said
“That’s how it really was.
But in my case, it was a
sofa.”
Monika Kufel
When I ask Monika Kufel
what her inspiration for The
Wardrobe (a play that mentions “who,” or actually
“what” is its main actor), she
has a simple response. During her second year at the
PWST in Wrocław, Monika
read Olga Tokarczuk’s The
hands of the Nazis outside.
A unique play is created. It
can be said that it came to
be unique by “accident”
because it was supposed to
be a play created for graduating the Wrocław theater
school, but what came out
was a mature and profes-
What is hidden in the theatrical wardrobe? Ana and
Monika say that this single
wardrobe can have very
many meanings. And it
has—because it can be read
in many different (which
doesn’t mean in better or
worse) ways. Everyone has
his or her own key to this
wardrobe. The power of
the play is awash in symbolism. It is a deep mine of
meanings and it is the sen-
Monika Kufel tells of a situation that took place in Oświęcim.
When The Wardrobe came to an end, a certain older gentleman
approached her and said “That’s how it really was.
But in my case, it was a sofa.”
sional play, that has been
given several honors and
has been hailed by both critics and audiences alike.
the play, however, politely
notes that he can stay for
only a short time, because
the same evening he is also
invited for a poetry reading
and will have to leave during the play. “We of course
understand and thank him
for accepting the invitation,” says Ana. Jakubowicz sits towards the edge,
so that he can quietly leave
and not disturb anyone.
The wardrobe opens, the
play has begun… 10 minutes pass—he’s sitting. Another 10 minutes pass—he
Among those who survived the war are
those who won’t talk about the trauma
that they experienced—they are hiding
it within themselves, making sure that
in no way will it become a part of their
children or grandchildren’s experience.
Monika Kufel, which takes
on another meaning, when
we remember the Jewish
background of the author.
The ladder standing to one
side becomes a railway for
a moment, which led these
locomotives of death to
places such as Treblinka or
Auschwitz. In this world,
every object is an actor who
speaks to us from the stage.
still sits. The play is coming
to an end—the chairman is
still present. Finally, after
the play, Ana approaches
him. “You know, madame,
I couldn’t leave” said Jakubowicz. “Watching this,
I felt that if I were to leave,
it would have been a blasphemy.”
Gabriela Nieśpielak
What else is the wardrobe?
It can refer to being withdrawn, separating oneself,
in an attempt to escape
from painful past experiences, which are hidden
deep within us, as the winter jacket at the bottom of
the wardrobe. Among those
who survived the war are
those who won’t talk about
the trauma that they experienced—they are hiding it
within themselves, making
sure that in no way will it
become a part of their children or grandchildren’s experience.
sitivity of the viewer and it
depends on how much they
can identify with the history presented, it depends on
what hidden symbols the
The Wardrobe had its pre- viewer finds hidden in the Ana
Nowicka—director
miere in Tarnów in 2004. wardrobe.
of the monodrama, born
The symptoms of its uniquein Oświęcim—remembers
ness started to show right For someone Jewish, this the testimony of Tadeusz
after that. Still in that year, may reflect the place where Jakubowicz,
Chairman
Monika Kufel received a the Torah scrolls are kept of the Jewish community
special award at the 32nd in the synagogue (the same in Cracow who, during
Polish Single-Actor Theater place, after all, bears the WWII, was a prisoner of
Festival in Wrocław, next name “Aron ha Kodesh”), Auschwitz. The chairman
she received another such for a Christian it may be the receives an invitation for
Photo: Tomasz Kuncewicz
Wardrobe. This was the first
inspiration. Then came the
idea to show this wardrobe
in the form of a thesis play.
Monika worked on the text,
wrote her own screenplay
(in cooperation with Marcin
Biały), and added fragments
of Tuwim’s famous Locomotive. This is how The Wardrobe—a monodrama about a
Jewish girl during the Second World War, who hides
in a wardrobe, to escape
the threat of death at the
altar (anyone who has even
once been in the church of
St. Mary in Cracow and has
seen the Stoss altar knows
that its appearance resembles a large wardrobe,
whose doors, depending
on whether they are open
or closed, depict the different situations in the life of
Jesus and Mary). For those
deported to concentration
camps, it can be the cramped
and well-sealed freight car.
This image is further enhanced by recited fragments
of Tuwim’s Locomotive by
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Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
—KIDDUSH HA-SHEM
A
dvent recollections have become a tradition with the Center of Dialogue and Prayer in co-operation with
Sisters of St. Mary of Zion in Cracow. This year was no different. This is a meeting, that in accordance to its
charismatic nature, shows God’s love for Israel. The Assembly is working mainly on the eradication of the
effects of anti-Semitism and strengthening of Christian faith by exploring the Bible. For several years, the Sisters
have lived in Poland, and have brought the Jewish religion to all who are interested.
because they were Jews, in
other words, those who venerate God for their presence
on earth and for His faithful
love for them, and through
them for humankind. The
Commandment to honor
“Thy God” is found in the
Torah and in the Holy Bible:
“You shall not profane my
Holy Name, to be sanctified
among the sons of Israel,
I am the Lord who sanctify
you” (Leviticus 22.32).
Photo: A. Bodzińska
Another source for the
commandment of Kiddush
Ha-Shem is the verse from
Deuteronomy, from which
begins the first paragraph of
the Shema prayer: “Love the
Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul
and with all your strength”
(Deuteronomy 6.5). However, there is also another
religious category connected
with the sanctification of
His Name. This is the Kiddush
Ha-Shem—sanctification of life. It appeared
again during the Shoah,
when Jews were threatened with total destruction.
It was based on the attempts
to save life, as long as it existed. Rabbis said that as
long as life exists, you must
live… Perhaps in those days
Kiddush Ha-Shem consisted in saving their dignity?
How do we again reconcile
the contradictions? Death
as martyrs, along with the
want to save lives.
fot. CDiM
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title Holy Fire, believed that
Kiddush Ha-Chaim has a
mystical quality. He argued
that during that time, God
suffered, seeing the tragedy
his people had to endure
and He could not come with
help, as He himself was
deep in despair. Jews who
suffered and later died had
to support their Creator in
His lonely anguish.
Thus they took part in
tikkun
olam—repairing
world that has been taken
over by evil.
Every time I pray on the
Way of the Cross in Birkenau, I stay longer at the crematorium by Station seven.
Testimony from the camp
that I have read, talked of
the sound of Jews singing
psalms. Witnesses state that
prayers could also be heard
from the cell of Father Maximillian Kolbe. What faith
these people must have
had… They honored God’s
Name, but before they did
that, they honored life and
Way of the Cross. Crematorium II
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Kaddish at the Jewish exibition at the Auschwitz Memorial
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because of their deeds (testi- en on a new facet. It has bemony) we know how to live come a way of testifying.
aware and with dignity. So,
Sisters’ of St. Mary of Zion
did they complete tikkun
olam? Since the Decem- in Krakow website: www.insion.pl
ber recollections, honoring
Marta Titaniec
God’s Name for me has tak-
Photo: CDP
Rabbi Shapiro from Piaseczno, the author of the commandments that were read
out in the Warsaw Ghetto,
published later under the
Photo: CDP
This year’s topic during the
retreat was Hallowed be Thy
name—Christian and Jewish prayer—the Our Father.
In Hebrew—Kiddush Ha-Shem. Sisters have shown
in depth that the prayer Our
Father is rooted in Judaism and Rabbinic tradition,
quoting Siduru Kaddish, or
Jewish prayer book, and finally the Mishnah. It shows
that Jesus was a son of the
Jewish nation, a faithful
Jew from Galali who studied the Torah—just as every
Jewish child learns the alphabet, reading the Torah.
When I listened to lectures
or read fragments of Jewish
prayers, for the first time
I understood, just how much
we are…
In the text of the last Way
of the Cross, which we take
part in during every recollection, we read that the
prayer Our Father could
have arisen in the camp. This
has always troubled me. In
what sense and what fragment would fit “most suitably” in camp reality. For
many people, heaven from
that time is closed and they
cannot pray. How could this
prayer have come out of
this hell on earth? I would
like to focus on this one aspect—the sanctification of
God’s Name—Kiddush Ha-Shem. How Jews could do
this, being brought by the
thousands to their death in
Birkenau? How could you
glorify God’s Name walking
straight from the ramp to
the gas chamber? Kiddush
Ha-Shem has now become
a synonym of martyrdom
for one’s faith. They all died
Sister Anne Denis and sister Anna on the roots of the Our Father prayer
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
History
PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
HELENA DATOŃ
Born into a working-class
family in Chrzanów on
April 25, 1922, the daughter of Andrzej and Józefa
nee Rzeszutko. Her father
died before the war and her
mother was left to raise her
three daughters, of whom
Helena was the oldest. After attending public school
in Chrzanów, she enrolled
in commercial school, and
was also a member of the
Sokół Gymnastics Society.
She was seventeen when
the war broke out. Fearing
that she would otherwise be
deported for slave labor in
Germany, she took a job in
1940 at the cafeteria at the
Brzeszcze coal mine. The
cafeteria was run by the
parents of her friend Wanda
Sztwiertnia, and Helena
went to live with them. Here,
she came into contact for the
first time with Auschwitz
prisoners and the people
who helped them, including
the leader of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) Brzeszcze
Group, Edward Hałoń. She
also helped in the collection
drives for food and medicine, and delivered parcels
to agreed places in Budy,
Rajsko,
and
Brzeszcze
where prisoners labored.
She returned to Chrzanów
in 1942 and took a job at the
SS cafeteria in Oświęcim,
located in “Haus 7,” a
building near the Auschwitz I-Main Camp. In the
same building, there were
offices where prisoners
worked. The job enabled
Helena to maintain direct
contact both with the prisoners working in the office
and with the suppliers of
merchandise to the cafeteria. From this point on, she
served as a courier between
the PPS Brzeszcze Group
and the camp. Her main
duty was to relay secret
messages. She also helped
to prepare escapes from
Auschwitz and passed on
illegal correspondence between prisoners and their
families. She also recruited
her acauaintances to mail
parcels to the camp, addressed to prisoners whose
names she supplied, during
the time when this could
be done officially. She remained active until January
22, 1945.
After the end of the war, she
worked in the Social Welfare Office in Chrzanów,
and also taught rhythmic
gymnastics and dance at the
schools there. She married
Stanisław Szpak in 1946,
and they had a daughter,
Małgorzata. Helena Szpak
retired in 1976. She lives
in Chrzanów. In recognition of her services, she has
been decorated with the
Commander’s Cross of the
Order of Poland Reborn.
VESTIGES OF HISTORY
Photo: A-BSM Collections Department
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FROM THE COLLECTIONS
OF THE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM
he word “signet” comes from the diminutive of the French
word “sign”—signe. A signet was once a kind of seal in the
form of a personal coat of arms or monogram attached to a
ring or engraved directly on it. Generally worn by men, it was a
personal symbol of its owner. It is not surprising that there are a
relatively large number of signets, created by prisoners of Auschwitz, in the Museum’ collection. In the dehumanized world of the
camp, it was an expression of the struggle to maintain one’s identity, and the desire to leave some trace of oneself behind.
Prisoners made these illegally from metal that
came from bells—camp
gongs, silver coins, plastic, and even horsehair;
these signets are priceless
mementos.
Monograms,
camp numbers, and names
of concentration camps are
engraved on these, information about human fate.
These also show the pris-
oners’ feelings—patriotic,
religious, as well as those
for other people. The white
eagle, crown of thorns, and
hearts can be found on
them.
The signet, seen in the picture, belonged to Czesław
Ludwiczak, Auschwitz prisoner with camp number
72124. He received it in
December 1942, when he
worked as a carpenter in
the workshop. It was made
for him by prisoners who
were metal workers from a
silver spoon “for the good
carpentry-metal work cooperation.” He hid the ring
in the camp, and during the
evacuation to other camps,
among others, Buchenwald
and Flossenbürg he hid it
A signet
doesn’t remember him. The
ring from the spoon was
treated as a precious treasure, passed through four
concentration camps, and
has become a SYMBOL of
Czesław Ludwiczak sur- his suffering, as well as his
vived, and in 1997 donated strength and determinathe signet to the Museum. tion.
He didn’t give the name
Agnieszka Sieradzka,
of the creator, because as
A-BSM Collections Department
he said himself, he simply
on his body. On the signet
next to the symbol KL Au,
a prisoner triangle, the initials “CL,” and his prisoner
number.
FROM GANOBIS’S CABINET
T
It was also said that sport
competitions took place on
the river. Today’s memoirs
concern kayak races, which
took place on 29 June 1933
in Oświęcim, not far from
the castle. The same day
was also the Dedication and
Opening of a Scouts Village,
as well as a national “Sea
Holiday.” The program of
the ceremony was quite full.
“At 10:30, by the Scouts’ Village near the Soła: a dedication of the kayak landing,
done by Father J. Skarbek,
speech.” A bit further, we
read: “launching the kayaks into the water and boat
parade; 16:00—kayak race
on the Soła; 21:00 a bonfire
near the village, wreaths on
the Soła, kayak parade and
of those invited by organizers. “
In the “Ekspres Ilustrowany” newspaper from 2 June,
we can read: “The scouting
sailing team received land
that was rented by them on
the Soła, near the confluence
with the Vistula, by the sailing harbor being built by the
National Department of Waterways (…) the scouts arrived immediately—to help
the sailors level the terrain,
on which the harbor was to
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be finished the following
week. It is worth mentioning, that the sailing team
was formed less than a year
earlier, putting forward their
work to one of the best sailing teams from the Cracow
region.” The work relating
to the building of the harbor,
as well as the ceremony are
described in detail in the old
Scouting Chronicle. In this
picture, a kayak paddle that
was found not long ago is
visible. The kayak belonged
to Janina Pomietlarz and
Pola Pomietlarz (later Pola
Bukietyńska). The kayak,
has unfortunately not been
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Photo: Mirosław Ganobis
he residents of Oświęcim spent their social life most often on
the main square, as well as by the river Soła. From the memoirs of residents, it was possible to learn that there was lots of
water in the river.
Kayak races
preserved, like the kayak hidden away for many years
harbor by the castle; but in before it ended up in my
my the attic of my familial personal collection.
Mirosław Ganobis
home the paddle had been
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 13, January 2010
Photographer
PHOTO REPORT
Photo: Dominik Smolarek
Photo: Dominik Smolarek
Photo: Dominik Smolarek
Photo: Dominik Smolarek
On November 29, in connection to the seventieth anniversary of the destruction of the Great Synagogue, a graffiti workshop took place at the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim. It was led by Dariusz Paczkowski, the co-founder of the Never Again Association, collaborator with: the Czarodziejska Góra Foundation and Tibetan Program of The Other Space Foundation.
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