models of memory before and after 1989 a historical train car at the

I SSN 1899- 4407
PEOPLE
CULTURE
OŚWIĘCIM
HISTORY
MODELS OF
MEMORY BEFORE
AND AFTER 1989
A HISTORICAL
TRAIN CAR AT
THE BIRKENAU
RAMP
SELECTION
IN THE CAMP
HOSPITAL
WHY DO WE NEED
TOLERANCE?
no. 11 November 2009
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
EDITORIAL BOARD:
Oś—Oświęcim, People,
History, Culture magazine
EDITORIAL
On the platform of the railroad spur
built inside the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in the spring of 1944,
German SS doctors carried out the
selection of the thousands of Jews
who arrived each day in boxcars.
Previously, trains stopped at the socalled Altejudenrampe located at the
old freight station between the two
camps. Since 2005, two original train
cars at the old ramp, or unloading
platform, have served as reminders
of the tragedy of deportation. In October, a historical German freight car
was placed at the ramp in Birkenau.
You can read a short article about
that event in Oś, and our cover shows
what that place now looks like.
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:
William Brand
Proofreading:
Beata Kłos
Cover:
Bartosz Bartyzel
Photographer:
Tomasz Mól
In November’s Oś, we recommend
another article sent to us by former
prisoner Czesław Arkuszyński. This
time, he tells about a selection in
the camp hospital that he witnessed
shortly after arriving at the camp.
We dare to hope that this will be far
from Czesław Arkuszyński’s last
contribution. We devote a great deal
of space to art this month. Agnieszka
Sieradzka of the Museum Collections
Department writes about two moving stories and two works of art that
prisoners gave to local civilians who
helped them. We also carry an article about the New Duet exhibition, a
Polish-German discourse about art,
and an account from a performance
The Ark by the Theater of the Eighth
Day from Poznań. We also draw
your particular attention to an article about a Polish-German-Ukrainian project on patterns of memory
before and after 1989 at the IYMC.
You will also find two invitations in
Oś, to an Advent retreat at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer, and to
the “Why Do We Need Tolerance?”
program, a joint project of the Jewish
Center and the Association of Roma
in Poland.
Paweł Sawicki
Editor-in-chief
[email protected]
A GALLERY
OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Once upon a time, this was our parish
cemetery. Earth mounds and pyramids with their sides shaped with
shovels, decorated on this special
day with a few lights and some white
chrysanthemum, and a wooden cross.
The lights were tiny metal holders
with a living flame inside, exposed to
the wind and the rain, because there
was good weather, but there was also
cruel autumn weather like we have
today. Few graves had concrete mark-
PUBLISHER:
Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum
www.auschwitz.org.pl
PARTNERS:
ers, and even more rare were prewar
Galician gravestones and monuments. Along the boulevard leading
to the cemetery you often found fair
booths selling cotton candy, gingerbread rosaries, and colored balloons.
Large numbers of beggars who had
lost part of their lifetimes, or of their
lives. The flames of common candles
cast a hot glow into the sky. Today’s
candles, covered in colored glass, do
not create this effect. Today, there are
showy lanterns, flowers, marble and
gilding—times have changed; not better or worse, but simply different.
The Day of the Dead was nationalized once, which was supposed to
mean that the dead had a day off, or
perhaps the living had one at their
cost. Today, it is All Saints’ Day—materialist/secular or spiritual/sacred,
at least for some.
Andrzej Winogrodzki
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 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
Postcard, ca. 1910. From Mirosław Ganobis’s Gallery of the 20th Century collection
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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
AN ORIGINAL GERMAN TRAIN CAR
AT THE BIRKENAU RAMP
A
historic train car has been placed at the ramp (unloading platform) at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site.
Beginning in the spring of 1944, Jews deported to Auschwitz by the Germans disembarked and underwent
selection by SS doctors there.
According to Keren Hayesod, the Israeli organization that carried out the
project, the wagon is intended to symbolize the deportation of Jews from Hungary
to Auschwitz in mid-1944.
They made up the largest
contingent of Holocaust
victims in the Birkenau gas
chambers.
“I find it very satisfying that
we were able to locate this
original freight car and that it
is now at such an important
place as the Auschwitz Museum,” said Micha Limor,
coordinator of the project
from the Israeli side. “I also
feel great emotion. This part
of the Holocaust—transports
to the camp, especially the
transports from Hungary,
when almost half a million
people were deported—will
be commemorated in a material way. This is a special
Arrival of a transport at Auschwitz. Archival photograph
the train platform situated
between the Auschwitz I
and Auschwitz II-Birkenau
camps, where trains full of
deportees arrived from 1942
to 1944, before train tracks
Two historical freight cars were laid almost to the doorcan also be found at the step of the gas chambers in
so-called
Altejudenrampe, Birkenau. Historical freight
symbol of the entire transport system that was used
to deliver Jews to Auschwitz
in the Holocaust,” Limor
added.
photo: Bartosz Bartyzel
The freight car placed at the
Auschwitz II-Birkenau site
comes from Germany. Museum specialists supervised
its conservation, carried out
by Die Schmiede, a German
company specializing in
landmarks of technical culture. “More than 120 thousand of these freight cars
were produced before the
Second World War,” said
preservation expert Ulrich
Feldhaus. “People were deported to the camp in many
of them, as is confirmed in
documents and archival
photographs.”
photo: A-BSM
“The Nazi Germans brought
people here in freight cars
such as this,” said Dr. Piotr
M. A. Cywiński, director
of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Memorial. “The emptiness
of this ramp was artificial,”
he added. “Today, when the
times of the Second World
War are increasingly remote,
young people find it difficult to imagine the hell of
transports that often lasted
for many days in a crowded freight car. The chance
of displaying an authentic
freight car at the previously
empty ramp in Birkenau is
highly important from the
perspective of education at
an original memorial site,”
added Dr. Cywiński.
Train car at the ramp at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site
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cars can also be found in
other places, including the
Yad Vashem Institute Historical Museum in Jerusalem, the Holocaust Museum
in Washington, and the site
of the Stutthof camp.
ps/jarmen
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
MAN WAS NOT ALONE IN THE FACE OF EVIL
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Josef Sapcaru, Collections Department A-BSM
Roses, Auschwitz, 1944
The Museum Archives hold
the memoirs of Alfred Ehrlich, one of the three prisoners
named on the painting. In his
account, he recalls his friends:
“We who were recently assigned to work in the office
take advantage of the Sunday
absence of our civilian superiors and the reduced number
of SS men and give ourselves
a holiday. After finishing
the most pressing work, we
take some time for ourselves.
Joseph Sapcaru, a Belgian architect and painter, uses his
exceptional dexterity to make
various sketches of flowers, which can be exchanged
for bread in the camp. Max
Ležansky, the oldest among
us, is grateful that he can work
under a roof after so many
years. He goes on meticulously filling out some official
forms and only exchanges a
few words with us from time
to time. For my part, I am typing out an essay on one Polish
girl who does inestimable favors for the prisoners, both in
the form of extra soup, and by
supplying us with information from outside.”
The Polish girl mentioned
here is probably Elżbieta Stawowy, especially since the
quoted passage refers to August 1944. The picture was
probably given to her a month
earlier. The fact that the three
friends were separated that
same month lends credence
to the hypothesis. Alfred Ehrlich was gravely wounded in
the leg during the bombing
raid on the Monowice plant
on August 20, and remained
in the camp hospital until
January 1945.
Elżbieta Stawowy’s name
does not appear in People of
Good Will. The authors never
found her because she moved
to Silesia after the war, and Alfred Ehrlich did not name her
in his memoirs. Yet the painting remains. It reached the
Museum after 65 years, and
thanks to this fact we were
able to discover Elżbieta’s story, which is also the story of
a friendship that was exceptional because it demanded
exceptional courage.
The second work added to
the Museum collections is
a portrait of Józef Mańka,
whose jobs during the war
included a stint as a waiter
in the hotel restaurant across
the street from the railroad
station (today, the Skorpion
restaurant). Mańka belonged
to the Home Army/Union
of Armed Struggle resistance movement. He helped
Auschwitz prisoners laboring
at the remodeling of the hotel
by supplying them with food
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photo: A-BSM
As improbable as it may seem
to us today, the residents of
the small town and its surroundings, often mothers and
fathers, risked their lives and
the lives of their children to
receive secret messages from
prisoners, so that the world
could learn the truth. Yet so
it was indeed, and this is confirmed not only by the words
of the people who rendered
aid and those who received
such aid, but also by various
works of art created as tokens
of gratitude. Recently, two
works testifying to human
goodness, disinterestedness,
and courage have been added
to the Museum collections.
The first is a watercolor of
roses, painted by Josef Sapcaru, a Belgian Jew laboring
at Auschwitz III-Monowitz.
The standard of execution belies the hand of an adept artist. The fact that there are few
extant works by Jewish artists
makes this an unusually valuable acquisition—and especially because the painting is
well documented. Precise details about the circumstances
of its origins can be found on
the reverse.
Elżbieta Szcześ, whose maiden name was Stawowy, received this painting in July
1944 from three Auschwitz
prisoners—Josef
Sapcaru
and two Czech Jews, Alfred
Ehrlich and Max Ležansky.
She met them while working at the Technisches Lager
in Monowice, where she was
probably a civilian employee.
She befriended them and gave
them food. It is worth noting
that those who aided prisoners only very infrequently remembered the names of their
beneficiaries. This was often
a deliberate ploy, in order
to avoid betraying anyone
in case of arrest. In this case,
Elżbieta Stawowy wrote the
names of the three men on the
back of the watercolor, and
thus saved them from being
forgotten.
Wincenty Gawron, Collections Department A-BSM
n order to convince yourself of how many residents of Oświęcim and the vicinity aided Auschwitz prisoners, all
you have to do is pick up the book People of Good Will, edited by Henryk Świebocki. When the world was indifferent
to what was happening behind the barbed wire of Auschwitz, some individuals proved that man was not alone in
the face of evil.
The interior of the Haus der Waffen SS restaurant,
with wall paintings by Mieczysław Kościelniak
Portrait of Józef Mańka,
Auschwitz, 1942
and medicine and acting as
intermediary in their illegal
correspondence. He was also
in contact with the resistance
movement inside the camp.
He passed to the Polish underground secret messages
concealed in fountain pens,
keys, and tubes of cream that
prisoners smuggled out of
the camp. Even after being
transferred to a restaurant in
the town center in December
1943, Mańka kept in touch
with prisoners and their relatives, and continued to be active in supplying them with
extra food.
Prisoner Stefan Podpora
writes that “Józef Mańka . . .
earned unending acknowledgement for his brave, heroic commitment and total
devotion to the resistance
movement.”
The portrait donated to the
Museum, by the noted camp
artist Wincenty Gawron, was
passed to its recipient by an
SS man. This might well have
been Herbert Göbbert, head
of the Arbeitseinsatz (the office that assigned prisoners
to labor), who was known for
the fact that he would do prisoners favors in exchange for
various gifts or cash. Many of
the prisoners employed in the
Arbeiteinsatz also belonged
to the resistance movement
inside the camp. Jerzy Pozimski, a worker in and later the
capo of this labor detail, regularly met Józef Mańka at the
restaurant across the street
from the train station, and
handed him secret messages.
Once again, a work of art constitutes valuable historical evidence and serves as a unique
record of good will and great
courage on the part of people
who risked their lives to save
others.
Wincenty Gawron need not
necessarily have known Józef
Mańka personally to paint his
portrait. The famous Polish
skier and Auschwitz prisoner
Bronisław Czech made numerous carvings for people
who helped the prisoners, despite the fact that he labored
inside the camp and hardly
ever had any contact with
local civilians. At the request
of camp friends, artists frequently made various paintings, small sculptures, or craft
items that were presented as
tokens of gratitude for acts of
kindness. Gawron may well
have been furnished with a
photograph of Mańka by the
camp resistance movement,
which he could have used as
the basis for the portrait. We
know that Gawron himself
belonged to the movement.
He was a member of the mili-
A PLEA FROM THE MUSEUM
The Museum is searching for art works and
other objects from the time when the camp
was in operation. The Nazis put a great deal
of effort into destroying all that remained of
the camp—the crematoria, the records, and
all evidence of the crimes they had committed. They did not manage to destroy everything. Every item connected with the history
of this place is evidence, and bears witness to
unimaginable suffering.
If you have anything at home connected with
the tragic history of Auschwitz, please get in
touch. The last eyewitnesses to the tragedy
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tary conspiracy formed by
Captain Witold Pilecki. The
organization helped Gawron
escape in May 1942.
It is also worth mentioning that, earlier that spring,
Gawron was assigned to make
wall paintings in the restaurant where Mańka worked.
The building had been turned
into a hotel and restaurant for
the SS—the Deutsches Haus,
also known as the Haus der
Waffen SS. The subject was
commissioned in advance:
Drang nach Osten (The Thrust
toward the East). Gawron’s
reluctance to tackle the subject, or even his fear of it, hastened his decision to escape.
As a result, the painting on
the restaurant wall was done
two years later by another
camp artist, Mieczysław
Kościelniak, by which time
the SS man who commissioned the work stated that he
“did not want anything on the
wall that would remind him
of the SS.” Kościelniak writes
in his memoir that “satisfied with such a commission,
I set to work. . . . I chose a historical subject—the German
Renaissance.” The frescoes remained on the restaurant wall
until 1959.
Agnieszka Sieradzka
Collections Department, AuschwitzBirkenau State Museum
are passing away. Only their memoirs, on
paper or on the artist’s canvas, remain. Every
object, every sketch is a history unto itself, a
story about a specific person. We cannot permit it to be forgotten. We will be very grateful
if you decide to donate the items in your possession to the Museum, so that the victims of
Nazi crimes will never be forgotten.
Remember! Each of us is responsible for preserving the memory of Auschwitz, for the
sake of all Europe and the entire world. We
can bring back to life the authentic emotions
and human experiences embodied in each
of these items, so that it can bear witness to
the Nazi crimes at the place where they were
committed.
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Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
IN THE FACE OF NEW CHALLENGES
T
he Program Board of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has met for the second time. The Board heard reports on the work of
the Center from 2007 to 2009 and statistics on visitors to the Memorial in recent years. More than a million
people from all over the world have already visited the grounds of the former Nazi German camp this year.
The majority of them are young people.
In 2008, the Center held
seminars, conferences, and
educational programs. Almost 7 thousand people took
part. The number could have
been higher, but the Center
had only limited space for
teaching. It has only two
modern lecture halls. The
new ICEAH headquarters
in the Old Theater building
should solve this problem.
seum to pay for the remodeling and outfitting of the
new ICEAH headquarters.
“It seems to me that this
building will provide excellent conditions for education, and this is important
because education should
take place in ideal conditions. I’m sure that the new
building will meet those requirements,” said Dr. Wolf
The board familiarized itself Kaiser, deputy director of
with plans for the adapta- the House of the Wannsee
tion of the building. The Conference in Berlin.
plans call for a modern auditorium, multimedia lecture The Board approved the
rooms, space for temporary report on the work of the
exhibitions, a library, and ICEAH over the last three
independent-study stations. years and expressed supAdaptation work should port for the efforts of the
begin next year. The whole Center in increasing the
project will cost about 25 amount of educational acmillion złotych. The Board tivity at the Museum and
approved efforts by the Mu- trying to reach out to new
photo: Paweł Sawicki
“I think that we are facing new challenges as the
situation around the world
changes. There is increasing
interest in the Holocaust,
young people are coming
here from different places,
and the Education Center
must respond in a correct,
accurate way to the issues
involved,” said Dorit Novak,
director of the International
School for Holocaust Studies
at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
“We are dealing with a professional team of people directing the educational work
of the Auschwitz Museum,
and I am really convinced
that, when we talk about
education connected with
the Holocaust, this must be
a matter of commitment and
imagination. I see that you
possess both of these characteristics.”
• PROGRAM BOARD
• MEMBERS
The Program Board of the InStefan Wilkanowicz – chairman
ternational Center for EducaProf. Jonathan Webber – deputy chairman
tion about Auschwitz and the
Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński – deputy chairman
Holocaust was appointed by
Dr. Hab. Barbara Engelking-Boni
the Minister of Culture and
Dr. Gideon Greif
National Heritage on October
Dr. Piotr Paziński
11, 2005. It advises on and reWolf Kaiser
views the educational work
Dr. Serge Klarsfeld
of the Center. It has 10 memDorit Novak
bers.
Marcello Pezzetti
Future headquarters of the ICEAH
photo: Bartosz Bartyzel
segments of society with its
educational programs. During the meeting, there were
many suggestions about future educational work, including the need for closer
cooperation with similar
centers around the world,
developing programs and
Meeting of the ICEAH Program Board
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material for minorities, including Muslims, and dealing with such subjects as
education about Auschwitz
in multicultural societies or
the perspective on Auschwitz by different faiths.
agju/pasa
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
THE LAST SELECTION FOR THE GAS
IN THE AUSCHWITZ I CAMP HOSPITAL
I
was taken to Auschwitz on July 28, 1943, in a large transport of prisoners from Radom and Tomaszów Mazowiecki. There were more than 600 people on the train. The next day, my name was exchanged for a number
tattooed on my left forearm in the bathhouse between blocks 1 and 2. Several functionary prisoners came there
in the afternoon. They picked out a dozen or more prisoners who had been beaten the most severely during their
interrogation, and led them to the camp hospital in block 19. I was in that small group. The rest of the prisoners
ended up in Birkenau.
I was quartered in a large
room to the left of the stairs,
in the third row of beds. The
beds were joined together
to make a rectangle, along
the long sides and with two
more at the head and the
foot. A woodchopper from
Lublin by the name of Jan
Tomal resided next to me.
I was a fledgling, the kind of
greenhorn they called a Zugang.
camp language, Lagersprache.
I picked it up easily because
my German was pretty good.
A lot of the patients, perhaps
as many as 80%, were Jews.
Most of them had camp
diarrhea—Durchfall.
That
sickness left them in terrible
shape, so they did everything possible to get an extra
spoonful of soup or mouthful
of bread. They ate everything
they could obtain from other
prisoners, and not sticking to
Jan Tomal taught me the their diet made their condicamp regulations and the tion worse.
After breakfast one morning in the middle of August,
a panic broke out in the block.
The older prisoners covertly
whispered some kind of confidential news among themselves. Everybody was worried, Jan Tomal informed me
that there was probably going to be a selection, because
the block supervisor was out
in front of the block, awaiting the arrival of some SS
officials. I didn’t understand
what he was telling me. Selection? What did that mean?
Janek told me that the SS
medical personnel carried
out selection in the hospital
from time to time. An SS
doctor rated every patient
in terms of his chances for
a rapid recovery and fitness for labor in the camp.
If a superficial examination
showed that the prisoner’s
chances for recovery were
slender, then that man was
finished. He would be taken
to Birkenau, gassed there,
and burned in the crematorium. The news paralyzed
me.
Janek went on. He told me
that, in order to liquidate the
typhus epidemic of the previous summer, the SS personnel gassed almost all the
prisoners who were in the
hospital at the time. They
burned the straw mattresses
and blankets, and carried
out a thorough disinfection
of the blocks. I thought that
he was becoming delusional
under the influence of some
sort of mental breakdown.
His stories struck me as implausible. At the same time,
I noticed that all the Jews
were sitting on their beds
with blankets over their
heads, praying ardently. So
they anticipated something
tragic. Their anxiety spread
to me. Soon, the block Schreiber proclaimed a Bettruhe,
which meant a ban on getting out of bed.
photo: Paweł Sawicki
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A funereal silence filled the
block until late afternoon.
Dinner was even served in
perfect calm, without the
muzulmans shoving for more.
Nobody wanted to eat. All
you could hear, from time to
time, were the lamentations
of the Jews sitting with their
blankets over their heads,
still praying ardently.
At around 1800 hours, trucks
drove up in front of the hospital blocks. As far as I recall,
there were 6 of them. There
were two prisoners from the
Sonderkommando in Birkenau
in each of them. The sick
Jews who had been selected
were called, and they were
led to the trucks. The orderlies and the Sonderkommando
prisoners helped the worst
cases up onto the trucks.
The sight was profoundly
disturbing for a camp novice
like me.
There was a malignant, expectant silence. Janek advised me to go up to the
table where the SS doctor
would be standing with a
brisk, almost military stride,
hand the doctor my medical
records, perform an energetic “about face,” and march
away equally vigorously.
We waited a long time for
the SS doctor to come—half
an hour or 45 minutes. We
had time to work ourselves Selection took place that
up into nervous wrecks.
day in all the blocks of the
camp hospital. The trucks
Suddenly, the Blockschreiber drove away. In the silence,
started shouting orders: with constricted throats,
“Alle Juden antretten! Ohne we turned away from the
Hemd! Fieberkurve mitneh- windows and back to our
men!” I understood the com- beds.
mands, and lay motionless
Czesław Arkuszyński
atop my bedding. The Jews
former Auschwitz prisoner
also understood the order.
camp number 131603
They may already have been
Czesław Arkuszyński
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through selection, or they
had been well informed
about what it meant. Silently, with tears in their eyes,
they got fearfully out of their
beds and lined up along the
main aisle down the middle of the block for what, in
many cases, would be their
last roll call. The stronger
men supported those who
were too feeble to fall into
line under their own power.
One by one, they went up
to the table and stood facing the SS doctor who, in
the course of two or three
seconds, decided whether to
put their medical charts on
the left or the right side of
the table. One of those growing stacks signified the gas
chamber and the crematorium. A second SS man, a socalled SDG—a non-commissioned officer in the sanitary
service—kept everything in
good order.
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International Youth Meeting Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
POLISH-GERMAN AND GERMAN-POLISH
CONVERSATIONS ABOUT ART
A
n exhibition of contemporary art titled New Duet (Nowy Dwudźwięk / Neuer
Zweiklang), presenting works by living artists from Oświęcim and Dachau, was
shown from September 25 to October 25 at the International Youth Meeting Center
in Oświęcim and the Oświęcim Culture Center.
New Duet was an unusual
exhibition in many ways.
It was a meeting between
artists from Oświęcim and
artists from Dachau—a
meeting between artists of
various generations, using
a wide range of techniques
from the sketches that are
the foundation of all the visual arts, through painting,
to the spatial forms of sculpture and installation. The exhibition grew out of not only
a desire to exemplify the rich
artistic life of these two cities that today are, for many,
symbols of death. It was also
an anniversary event. Twenty years ago, in Oświęcim
in 1989—in the difficult circumstances of a new Poland
being born—several artists
from Dachau showed their
works and thus initiated the
exchanges that go on to this
day, and not only in art.
“The artists from Dachau
who showed their work 20
years ago as a response to and
commentary on the things
that happened in Auschwitz
hold a special place in our
Center,” said IYMC director Leszek Szuster. “For us
in Oświęcim, it’s also some-
thing special that, 20 years
after those events, they are
being shown together with
works by local artists.”
Yet there is more to the last
20 years of contacts between
Oświęcim and Dachau than
intensive artistic exchanges.
There are also lively contacts
between vocational schools,
the significance of which was
emphasized by the presence
at the opening on September
25 of Dachau mayor Petr
Bürgel and city executive
Hansjörg Christmann. However, the most important
aspect of the meeting was
the unique confrontation between the works of 13 artists
that took place before our
eyes. Like the Artists from
Dachau exhibition 25 years
ago, it was divided between
two important local institutions, the Oświęcim Culture
Center and the IYMC. It
included works by dozens
of artists whose renown
extends far beyond the local frameworks of the two
cities. This connection between the artists from these
two symbolic cities was the
bond holding together this
exceptional
kaleidoscope
of artistic visions, and not
only in the sense that is connected with the histories
of Oświęcim and Dachau.
Nevertheless, it must be
admitted that many of the
works on show transposed
to the language of art those
feelings connected with the
past that are difficult to put
into words.
photo: Marzena Wilk
“We did not realize at the
time that this event was one
of many particles that, over
the years, went to make up
not only a new Poland, but
also a new Europe. As we
drank Żywiec and Paulaner, we never dreamed that
the Berlin Wall would fall
within a month, that the Soviet Union would fall a year
later, and that hundreds and
thousands of small undertakings like ours would be
an important component
in building a new, shared
European future. Then, in
September 1989, both the
unification of Germany
and Polish membership in
NATO and the European
Union seemed beyond the
realm of dreams. We were
too small in relation to the
theater of history playing
all around us,” wrote Paweł
Warchoł, an Oświęcim artist, in the catalogue to the
exhibition of which he was
curator, New Duet.
The viewer came into contact with reflections that
had to do with more than
Auschwitz and Dachau.
The artists had something
to say about man on various
levels. There were portraits,
including Paweł Warchoł’s
outstanding cycle of drawings or Marian Kasperczyk’s
“unspoken” faces, which
emerged from uneven layers of paint. There was also
existential reflection, as in
the splendidly monumental
“evanescence” with which
the sculptor Wolfgang Sand
defied the burden of the materials he used to create constructions with unexpected
constellations depicting the
fleetingness of time and the
fragility of human life. Waldemar Rudyk carried on an
intellectual dialogue with
the viewer, with the help
of words and disturbing or
oddly decorative combinations of wood and metal.
The exhibition also featured
Agata Agatowska’s formally pure, classically cold,
sculpted figures. These dispassionate works contrasted
starkly with Remigiusz Dulka’s disturbing, highly erotic
bronzes. New Duet was also
a reflection on art or, if we
see it in a broader context,
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Fot. Marzena Wilk
photo: Marzena Wilk
photo: Marzena Wilk
We saw Esther Glück’s captivating Overcoat for Dachau,
woven out of grass from the
Memorial, as well as Heiko
Klohn’s dreamy sketch
Wirkenbald¸ showing a birch
forest with melancholy connotations inscribed in the
consciousness of almost every resident of a city touched
by the curse of places of suffering. Finally, the exhibition featured lyrical drawings by Florian Marschall,
showing wild herbs, those
tiny fragments of the healthgiving force of the Earth that
represent silent, fragile, but
eternal resistance to man’s
destructive actions.
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on the human spiritual condition. Józef Hołard used
colorful paintings to convey
his impressions of one of the
most amazing productions
of human genius, the stone
city of Petra.
The combination of varied
materials and techniques—
metal, print, and ceramics—
was the subject that inspired
Monika Siebmanns to create
sculptural-graphic bas-relief
compositions. Strong contrasts, including contrasting
colors, were used by Heinz
Eder to tell a poetic story of
his struggles with light and
darkness. A supplement to
the multiplicity of the pathways of the human mind,
and also to the New Duet
exhibition, was represented
by the intellectual painting-prints of Ralf Hanrieder—conceptual reflections
of the geometrical thinking,
conjured out of “coordinate”
calligraphic forms.
Joanna Klęczar
International Youth Meeting Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
A MORALITY PLAY WITHOUT ANSWERS
T
he idea of the itinerant theater reaches back to the middle ages. So many splendid theater buildings have been
erected, but staying on the move remains characteristic of the art. This applies to stationary and institutional
theaters, but also to the ones that are alternative, fringe, or one-person. Thanks to all of this, we were able to see
The Ark by the Theater of the Eighth Day from Poznań giving a bravura open-air performance in Oświęcim.
Zbigniew Waszkielewicz’s
IOTA Theater came from
Mazuria. Oświęcim was the
final stage of their Open Air
project. Waszkielewicz, both
director and one of the actors, listed several reasons for
coming here. First, he spent
his childhood in Oświęcim.
Second, he has worked with
the IYMC previously, holding theater workshops for
young people. Third, the
performance was dedicated
to the memory of Bożena
Kulka-Georgiew, a local journalist, teacher, and cultural
organizer who worked with
the IYMC and was Waszkielewicz’s friend.
photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
The nocturnal stage decoration consisted of torches,
a spotlight, lights, and a lantern. The theatrical space
was a circle with a little heap
of earth inside it. Off to the
side stood an old camera and
an easel. In the background,
above the trees growing on
the banks of the Soła, was a
full moon. The music came
from a tape player and the
voice of the narrator from Here, the resemblance ends.
offstage. There were three ac- In a morality play, Everyman confronts the temptators, too.
tions of this world before
The protagonist was a man, finally—thanks to the allebut his gender was not an gorical figures of Virtue and
issue. He was nameless, Faith—straightening up and
transparent, and dressed in understanding how to live.
white: one of us, Everyman, This protagonist received no
Jedermann—a classical fig- answers to his questions. In
ure from a medieval moral- any case, it is a matter of onity play. What is more, he tological rather than moral
had two beings accompany- quandaries: Where do I come
ing him. We could say that from? Who am I? Where am
one of them was earthly and I going?
material, while the other was
heavenly and spiritual. They The composition of Waszkieboth looked after him, in lewicz’s play is clear and
intelligible. We observe the
their own different ways.
and we hear the voice of the
narrator. This is Man speaking. He reflects on his experiences. He asks universal
questions. And then he dismisses it all with the refrain,
“I’ll think that over later.”
After all, he has so much left
to do.
A recurring theme of the
protagonist’s utterances is
“taking wing.” That is the
dream of Everyman. He
does indeed jump around
awkwardly, but that is only
a metaphor. He is not a Leonardo da Vinci, who was
capable of inventing a flying
machine. Man has a feeling
that there is something beyond the earth, some “purpose” that brought him to
life and gave that life sense
from the start. Or at least he
wants to believe this.
And he succeeds—after
death. Only then do the
earthly and the spiritual
merge. The earth embraces
the body and the spirit flies
off into space. “At last, a purpose—an emerging sense of
direction.” And the moon
rose in all its splendor above
the Cottage of Silence in the
gardens of the IYMC.
Małgorzata Gwóźdź
photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
photo: Bartłomiej Senkowski
stages in a human life, from
birth to death. In the beginning, the character learns to
walk, and then to run. He
encounters the world. He
falls in love, plays the flute,
and goes to war. He farms,
and builds a house. He has
a child. He grows old. The
actors rely on gestures alone.
They make fantastic use of
props. In their hands, a twometer stick becomes a flute,
and then a telescope, a rifle,
a shovel, a measuring rod,
and an oar. Music accompanies the action. At the end,
each part of the play appears
as a tableau, the music fades,
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
IN THE INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN POLAND,
GERMANY, AND UKRAINE. MODELS OF MEMORY—DEBATES
AND INTERPRETATION BEFORE AND AFTER 1989
T
he first intergenerational Polish-German-Ukrainian historical workshops were held at the International Youth
Meeting Center in Oświęcim from October 7 to 12. Representatives of the 1920-1945 and 1945-1960 generations took part, along with four representatives of the 1975-1990 generation. The project was prepared and
carried out on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the German aggression against Poland on September 1, 1939,
and the 20th anniversary of the turning point of 1989.
as well as national perspectives on the perception of
the Second World War. The
discussion also included a
comparative analysis of the
collective and individual
memory.
There were discussions in
international and intergenerational subgroups about
which individual experiences, including experiences of
persecution with emphasis
on the critical dates of 1939
and 1989, are fixed in our
biographies. The goal of the
seminar was to create for the
participants a possibility of
dealing with the history and
the historical writing of their
fatherlands in reference to
the history of Auschwitz and
I was born in Zabrze and came here from Wanne-Eickel, Germany. At present I am performing alternative
service in the financial department of the St. Anne Hospital in Herne.
I grew up between two cultures, Polish and German,
and Polish-German relations and conflicts therefore
interest me especially. The Auschwitz concentration
camp is the darkest point in these mutual relations and,
in view of its significance in Polish, German, and also
European history, it is very interesting to me, which is
why I visit it during each family visit in Poland and try
to get as many of my acquaintances as possible interested in it, in the subject, and in this place as a unique
monument to cruel, evil, and incomprehensible things.
Dialogue between different countries and generations
is important for the preservation of the memory of
Auschwitz and the crimes and human fates associated
with it, in order to give the slogan “Never again Auschwitz!” a lively impact in international debates, in order to preserve the memory and to reinforce the ethical
principles of our culture.
I am very satisfied with this seminar, since, thanks to it,
I can see the international connections between people
who agree that Auschwitz should never be repeated.
The way this subject is dealt with is lively and not
based only on dry theory. Here, you live by principles.
The projects in Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and Israel
show that memory and faith in humanity are not only
something that exists in writing, but have their roots in
life. This practical and direct reference to people and
life is a support to memory.
Together with others, we can all help to pass on to future generations the memories of witnesses, and history in general, and to connect this with the present in
order to show others that history touches each of us,
and has an impact on the biographies of our families,
and on our own biographies.
Through cooperating and joining others in this seminar,
we gain an opportunity for active work on the issues
named above, to reinforce the ethical underpinnings of
our societies.
Arthur Czora
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the Second World War, and
to attempt to come to terms
with it.
The seminar was deliberately held in a tri-national
constellation so that it would
be possible to compare various models of the interpretation of specific historical
events and the way they are
perceived and understood in
the context of varying socializations, cultures, traditions,
historiographies, and oral
accounts within the family
circle.
In addition to changes in
perspectives in reference
to the “history” of the participants’ given country of
origin, the workshop also facilitated an exchange of perspectives that transcended
one’s own generation. This
was intended to contribute
to the building of empathy
not only between various
nations, but also between
generations. The seminar
was intended in principle to
support just such a process
of becoming aware of the influence of universal history,
I live and work in Donetsk. I was born in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. In Donetsk, I graduated in International Trade
Administration. In Donetsk there is a Polish Culture Association, and I am on its board of trustees. On a daily
basis, I work as a teacher of the Polish language and as
a reporter for a Polish newspaper. I am very attached to
Polish culture, traditions, and cooking. The subject of the
seminar was very interesting for me, because the Second
World War is a traumatic event in our shared history,
and it is necessary to know about it. My personal motto
is: “Strive to reach your chosen goal and be happy with
what you have.” I think that I am lucky because we have
not had to experience war in our lives.
Roza Berdychanova
and above all the turning
points of 1939 and 1989, on
family history. Another goal,
over and above this one, was
to join together in discussing the often contradictory
and difficult interpretations
of historical events, but to
avoid treating them as obstacles to partnership and
democratic action that could
not be overcome.
At the beginning of the seminar, the participants joined
together in touring the
former grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
photo: IYMC
The guiding principle for
the historical workshop was
working together on national models for the interpretation of both individual
and collective stories. At the
center of attention were the
experiences of individuals
and their perception, with
emphasis on the meaning
of particular turning points
in the collective memory of
those individual’s country
and the effect that those moments have to this day on
individual and family biographies.
Of crucial importance, therefore, were questions about
the meaning of Auschwitz in
the individual and collective
memory of a given country,
Meeting with former prisoner Zofia Łyś
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camp and extermination
center as part of the thematic
block What Meaning Does
Auschwitz Have in the Collective and Individual Memory of
the Three Nations? Next came
a summing up of the tour
and an ordering of the significances and symbolism of
Auschwitz as found in each
of the countries and each of
the biographies. Within the
framework of the summing
up of the visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial we
tasked the mixed Polish-German-Ukrainian groups with
I was born in Dresden. I spent many years in Baden.
In 2002, I enrolled at Greifswald, on the Baltic Sea, to
study the history and culture of Eastern Europe, and
economics. After graduation, I took advantage of a few
free months for the intensive study of the tempestuous
history of Europe in the 20th century.
For me, it is very important to be able to talk with people of various ages and from various cultures, and to
learn about the perspectives and culture of history in
their countries. Today, in mixed groups, we made an
attempt to learn more about our personal perspectives
on the problem of the Second World War by asking
various questions. My group was able to hear stories
from the life of our Russian participant. During the
presentation of the results, it seemed to me that there
was an important difference in the way these issues are
rooted in our families. In German families, there was
much less talk of these events with children, while the
discussions were frequent and intense in Polish and
Russian families.
Falk Flade
about one’s own family history, and the understanding
of certain decisions, acts, and
perspectives have great importance, above all in view
of the formation of one’s
own system of values and
action strategies. In the Sign
of Penance Action Service for
Peace, work on biographies
is an important element in
the preparation of young
people for volunteer service.
The goal is to reinforce the
competence for making decisions and acting in the political and social context, and
forming empathy for various
cultures. Thanks to the inter-
photo: IYMC
second thematic block, The
Biography of My Family. Zofia
Łyś later passed through the
Natzweiler,
Ravensbrück,
Berlin-Köpenick, and Sachsenhausen camps. She was
liberated in the vicinity of
Schwerin in the spring of
1945. She returned to Poland a year later. She had to
begin her life from scratch.
After the discussion with
her, the seminar participants
worked on the biographies
of their own families using
the method called “the river
of my life.” The method of
working on the biographies
was conducive in this con-
generational dialogue about
the times of National Socialism, the relationship between
the generations can change
into a relationship between
memories, and a debate may
be initiated on the subject of
racism and war with regard
to experiences from the times
of National Socialism.
In the third thematic block,
the seminar participants
worked on the subject The
Second World War in My
Memory, My Family’s Memory, and My Country’s Memory.
The work was accompanied
by such questions as: When,
where, and how did I learn
for the first time about the
Second World War? What
events do I personally connect with the Second World
War? What did my parents
and grandparents tell me
about? What situation were
my grandparents in when
they were as old as I am
now? The intergenerational
and international subgroups
debated these questions and
then took turns presenting
their varied perspectives on
the perception of the problem.
On the fourth day, we proposed that the seminar participants take part in active
sightseeing in the town of
Oświęcim, combined with a
visit to the synagogue and
the Jewish cemetery. On
the last evening, the seminar participants organized
a Polish-German-Ukrainian
evening during which they
were served dishes characteristic of each country, and
there was a contest with
tasks to be performed and
short presentations by the
three national teams.
In the fourth and final thematic block, we turned our
attention to the significance
of the events of 1989 for the
future. At the center of attention were the following
questions: What factors determine our present percep-
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photo: IYMC
text to individual reflection
and heightened sensitivity
to the history of one’s own
family, and was oriented
towards the question: How,
at the present moment, do
I perceive the past and the
knowledge about it that has
been communicated to me?
What questions bother me?
The seminar participants
constructed and decoded
the histories of their own
lives, their biographies, and
their families’ past in reference to the national-socialist
period. Concrete knowledge
photo: IYMC
designing a monument that
would represent the memory
of Auschwitz and its victims
in the future, with special attention to the many perspectives from which Auschwitz
is perceived.
We invited an eyewitness to
the events, Zofia Łyś, who as
a 15-year-old girl was deported along with her parents,
brother, and two sisters to the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and extermination center as part of Aktion
Zamość, to hold a discussion
with the group as part of the
photo: IYMC
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
tion of the past? What conflicts are emerging in a given
country? What problems are
accompanied by the most
powerful emotions? What
factors led to the things that
happened in Auschwitz?
Above all, our discussion
took place within the context of human rights and
Auschwitz, which was the
guiding idea of the series of
workshops titled Remember
Auschwitz—Human Rights in
Today’s World, which is being
carried out at present in the
IYMC and financed by the
German Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
At the end of each thematic
block, we recorded the output and the impressions of
the various working groups
and individual participants
in texts, as part of the writing workshop. The texts
will serve as the basis for
a brochure that will be published after the seminar. It
will document the conduct
of the seminar and present
the texts by the participants
from the three countries, and
will be a commentary on the
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individual points in the program.
The seminar surely reinforced our desire to organize further seminars in
a tri-national constellation.
We considered the possibility of preparing a seminar
in Ukraine, with the support
of our Ukrainian volunteer
Daria Varyvod, who has
been carrying out service at
the IYMC since September
within the framework of the
Sign of Penance Action along
with her colleague from Germany, Michael Winter.
The project was prepared and
carried out on the occasion
of the 70th anniversary of the
German aggression against
Poland on September 1, 1939,
and the 20th anniversary of
the turning point of 1989 by
the Pedagogical Department
of the IYMC in cooperation
with the Sign of Penance Action for Peace in Belarus and
Ukraine, with the support of
the All-Ukrainian Center for
Holocaust Studies in Dnipropetrovsk.
Anna Meier
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Jewish Center
ter
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
WHY DO WE NEED
TOLERANCE?
T
eachers and students from secondary
schools in Małopolska and Silesia will be
seeking the answers to these questions
in a new program at the Jewish Center. The
Association of Roma in Poland is a partner in
the program, which begins in December.
“Auschwitz is the most horrifying example of the consequences of intolerance and
assent to the stigmatizing of
ethnic and social groups,”
said Jewish Center Director
Tomasz Kuncewicz. “Our
new program will make
young people and adults
more aware of similar dangers that exist today.”
Teachers taking part in the
program will be able to
choose one of five weekend
anti-discrimination seminars.
During the lessons conducted by outstanding experts,
participants will learn about
the mechanisms by which
stereotypes and prejudices
arise, and methods of teaching tolerance at work and in
school.
Special workshops were prepared for the students on the
basis of the film Blue-Eyed,
which describes the most
famous American anti-discrimination exercise. The sessions last two hours and are
recommended as a supplement to visits to the Auschwitz-Birkenau site.
Students from the Oświęcim
area have been invited to
a special series of workshops
J
on “Pioneers of Tolerance.”
Twenty people especially interested in the subject of tolerance and human rights will
take part in a series of meetings with people from different ethnic and social minorities in Poland. The “Pioneers”
will interview them and publish their impressions of the
project in blogs.
The “Why Do We Need Tolerance?” program will last
from December 2009 to November 2010. For more about
the program and the schedule, go to www.poconamtolerancja.pl.
All students and teachers interested in taking part should
contact Dr. Artur Szyndler
(e-mail:
[email protected];
Tel. 033 844 7002). All events
on the program schedule are
free of charge.
The project is being carried out
with financial support from
Iceland, Liechtenstein, and
Norway, with European Economic Zone Financial Mechanism, Norwegian Financial
Mechanism funds, and Polish
government funds within the
framework of the Fund for
Non-Governmental Organizations.
Maciej Zabierowski
JANE ELLIOTT’S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION EXERCISES
ane Elliott was a teacher in the 1960s. On April 5, 1968, the day
after the assassination of Martin Luther King, one of her pupils asked her why Martin Luther King had been killed. She
made this the starting point for her lesson. The responses from
the children typified classical racial stereotypes. Elliott wondered
whether the children would be interested in finding out what it is
like to be black.
On that day, she decided to
make the blue-eyed children
the superior first, giving
them extra privileges like
second helpings at lunch,
access to the new jungle
gym and five minutes extra
at recess. She would not allow blue-eyed and browneyed children to drink from
the same water fountain.
She would offer them praise
for being hard-working and
intelligent. The “brownies”
on the other hand, would be
disparaged. She even made
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the brown-eyed children
wear ribbons around their
neck. At first, there was
resistance to the idea that
brown-eyed children were
not the equals of blue-eyed
children. To counter this,
she used a pseudo-scientific
explanation for her actions
by stating that the melanin responsible for making blue-eyed children also
was linked to intelligence
and ability, therefore the
“brownies” pigmentation
would result in lack of these
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qualities. Shortly thereafter, this initial resistance
fell away. Those who were
deemed “superior” became
arrogant, bossy and otherwise unpleasant to their
“inferior” classmates
The following day, Elliott
reversed the exercise, making the brown-eyed children
superior. While the browneyed children did taunt the
blue-eyed in ways similar
to what had occurred the
previous day, Elliott reports
it was much less intense.
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At 2:30 on that Wednesday,
Elliott told the blue-eyed
children to take off their collars and the children cried
and hugged each other.
To reflect on the experience,
she had the children write
letters to Coretta Scott King
and write compositions
about the experience.
Elliott believes that the best
way to teach about racism is
to create a situation where
whites experience discrimination. This experiment
was the basis for the film
Blue-Eyed, which has been
broadcast by many TV stations in the U.S. In it, we
observe a group of 40 teachers, police, school administrators and social workers
in Kansas City—blacks,
Hispanics, whites, women
and men. The blue-eyed
members are subjected to
pseudo-scientific explanations of their inferiority,
culturally biased IQ tests,
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and blatant discrimination.
In just a few hours under Elliott’s withering regime, we
watch grown professionals
become despondent and
distracted, stumbling over
the simplest commands.
In her home in Iowa Elliott
tells how a simple exercise
that she started with her
pupils after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King Junior has changed
her life. After that, when
the exercise was shown on
television met with harassment from other residents
of the city, the children were
beaten and spat on, and her
parents’ coffee shop went
bankrupt after it was boycotted by the local community. Nevertheless, Elliott
states that Blue-Eyed is the
best of all the films about
her workshops.
Source: www.bezuprzedzeń.org
(AJ-S)
Jewish Center
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
LET’S REMEMBER FOR THE FUTURE
T
he main synagogue in Oświęcim stood here for many centuries. For some, it was a place to meet; for
others, it was the center of Jewish Oświęcim before the war. On Berka Joselewicza Street today, all that
remains among a clump of trees is a plaque commemorating tragic historical events.
Oświęcim, 1916-1917. Postcard from the collection of M. Ganobis
On the night of 29 to 30
November 1939, the Germans destroyed the Great
Synagogue in Oświęcim.
On the 70th anniversary of
this tragic event, the Jewish Center invited all town
residents, and anyone else
who was interested, to an
artistic project by Dariusz
Paczkowski.
November marks another
important date, the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht,
on the night of November 9
to 10, 1938, when there was
a pogrom against Jews all
over the Third Reich. Since
1988, the International Day
of Combat against Fascism
and Antisemitism has been
held on November 9, the anniversary of these events.
The first mention of the
synagogue dates from 1588.
Initially, it was a wooden
building. Brick walls came
later. It was burned down
twice, in the fires that swept
through the town in 1711
and 1863. Its rebuilding in
brick after the 1863 fire last-
Jewish street and prayer house in Oświęcim. Postcard from the collection of Mirosław Ganobis
ed until 1873. The appearance familiar from photographs in the early 1900s
took shape a decade earlier.
A successful architect from
Bielsko, Karol Korn, probably designed the new look:
a richly decorated facade
including
neo-Romantic,
neo-Gothic, and Moorish
elements, along with the
arcades that the Germans
characterized as the Rundbogenstil. This was similar
to what Korn had done
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with other designs, such as
the synagogues in nearby
Biała and Wadowice, neither of which is extant, or
the details of the reform
Tempel on Miodowa Street
in Cracow.
The use of German models
in the facade was a clear
sign of the modernizing
tendencies that dominated
the Oświęcim Jewish community in the second half
of the nineteenth century.
Most of the congregation at
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the Great Synagogue were
progressive
intellectuals
(including doctors, lawyers,
businessmen, and local officials); only a small percentage were traditionalists.
The synagogue held two
thousand and was called
“great.” It emphasized the
importance of Oświęcim’s
Jews in public life. It was
the center of worship, and
the community offices and
institutions were located
nearby.
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Center for Dialogue and Prayer Foundation
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
WHAT’S MY CONNECTION
WITH AUSCHWITZ?
M
of Poland. I basically managed to keep things separate,
which both surprised and
pleased me. After all, I did
not want to confine myself
to the subject of Auschwitz.
I also wanted to learn Polish
and learn about Polish culture.
The
Lebanese-American
philosopher Khalil Gibran
describes memory as a form
of encounter. During my
year there—during memorial ceremonies, meetings
with former prisoners, and
everyday work with visiting groups—I had a very
personal encounter with
German history and the
question of what it had to do
with me. Each group had its
own approach to the subject
of Auschwitz. Some, usually
school groups, approached
the subject from the historical angle. Others preferred
a spiritual approach. This is
what made it so interesting
for me to accompany various
groups as they toured the
Auschwitz-Birkenau site.
The changing groups, and
also external circumstances, made each of my visits
there an experience in itself.
A visit by a group of German high-school students to
the Auschwitz I-Main Camp
made a particular impression on me. One of them was
a blind boy. There were a lot
of groups that day. As we
were standing in the building where groups wait for
their guide, that blind boy
said that, if he didn’t know
where he was, he would
have thought that he was
at a swimming pool or an
amusement park, and not
a concentration-camp site.
That really brought it home
to me that, while visiting a
former concentration camp
and extermination center is
important in itself, the decisive factor is the personal
attitude that you have when
you go there. Otherwise, the
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial is reduced to the level of
a tourist attraction without
any deeper sense, and without any message. To prevent
this, we should appreciate
the educational work done
by institutions like the Jewish Center, the Center for
Dialogue and Prayer, the
International Youth Meeting Center, and of course the
Auschwitz-Birkenau State
Museum.
My year in Poland, in
Oświęcim, was an encounter and a confrontation with
my German history, and also
with contemporary Poland.
I made friends and was received very hospitably and
warmly by the staff at the
Center for Dialogue and
Prayer, and by other Poles.
This is all the more an occasion for joy in the light
of what happened 60 years
ago.
My volunteer work in Poland ended more than
a month ago. Staying in this
country, which had previously been unknown to me,
photo: private collection
After graduating from high
school, I decided to spend
a year abroad as a volunteer,
and I started looking for an
organization that could offer
me a new experience. This
led me to the Pax Christi
Catholic International Peace
Movement in Aachen, which
sends seven volunteers to
Poland, and also to Bosnia,
each year. Since I’m very
interested in history, and
the volunteers are supposed
to work in the vicinity of
a Memorial site, the Center
for Dialogue and Prayer in
Oświęcim caught my eye.
My whole family, including
me, have been friends for
many years with a PolishAmerican family living in
Aachen. That was something
else that made me want to
learn about the country our
friend Krystyna comes from,
and to spend a year there.
I was often asked, in both
Germany and Poland, what
made me decide to spend
a year in Oświęcim, where
some very melancholy and
shameful events in German
history transpired.
Looking back, I recall an encounter that played a large
role in my decision about
my volunteer service. I was
in Cracow for a week in late
August 2007, and I joined
a small group of high-school
students on a visit to the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and extermination center. During the visit
an older gentleman, Polish,
came up and asked me why
we young Germans visit that
place. In fact, he was asking
me what my connection to
Auschwitz was. At first, it
struck me as an easy question. However, I had a lot
of trouble answering it in
a personal way. I mulled it
over many times until I finally made the decision to
“return” as a volunteer.
My first month as a volunteer was devoted to familiarization with this new place
where I lived and worked.
It was a time when I tried
to maintain a separation between the area around the
Auschwitz-Birkenau camp,
and the town of Oświęcim.
On the one hand, I worked
at the Center for Dialogue
and Prayer, right next to the
camp. On the other, we had
our apartment in the town
of Oświęcim, and all the rest
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The March of the Living in 2009
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photo: private collection
y name is Simon Umbach. I’m 19 and I come from Aachen. One month ago,
I concluded my year of service as a volunteer at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer
in Oświęcim.
Simon Umbach
with its unfamiliar culture
and difficult language, has
made me more self-reliant,
open, and self-confident.
I learned about Auschwitz,
from both the historical and
the spiritual side. However,
Auschwitz remains an inexhaustible subject for me,
which is why I could easily
spend another year here, or
even longer.
I am sure that I will be
back soon. Until then...
Simon Umbach
Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
History
PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL
FROM GANOBIS’S
CABINET
KONSTANCJA WITKOWSKA
(1914-1995, MARRIED NAME BILCZEWSKA)
Born on April 29, 1914 in Kobiernice neat Kęty. Graduated
from the State Coeducational
Gymnazjum in Kęty, and
next from the Teacher Training College in Cracow. From
1935, she worked in Andrychów at the tuberculosis-prevention sanatorium for children, and at the Agricultural
School in Kobiernice.
She lived in her hometown
during the German occu-
pation. She belonged to the
resistance movement. She
was a member of the Home
Army. She served as a courier in that organization. After
the founding of Auschwitz in
1940, she joined the effort to
help the prisoners. She supplied them with food, medicine, and warm clothing. She
helped escapees from the
camp. She prepared identity papers for them as well
as safe houses where they
could rest and recoup their
strength before going on to
join partisan units or cross
over into the General Government. She aided prisoners alone or with others from
her organization. The people
of good will with whom she
cooperated were often from
the “Janina Lacheta Group,”
led by the founder of the aid
movement, Janina Kajtoch.
Witkowska was fortunate
to avoid arrest when the
Gestapo came for her on October 5, 1944. They took her
mother, sister, and brother
as hostages. Her brother
managed to escape from
them. Her mother died in
Auschwitz; her sister survived until liberation in
Ravensbrück. After the arrest of her family, Konstancja Witkowska left Kobiernice
and spent the rest of the war
in hiding in Bielsko, Libiąż,
and Wadowice.
She married Józef Bilczewski after the war. They
had two sons, Władysław
and Andrzej. Konstancja
Witkowska worked until
retirement age at the InterSchool Waiting Room in
Kęty. She died in Kęty on
February 17, 1995 and is buried in the communal cemetery there. She was awarded
the Grunwald Badge and,
posthumously, the Home
Army Cross.
O
nce, I found an old house on Krasickiego Street that dated back more
than a century. I took a risk by going inside—the roof had partially caved in.
However, a connoisseur of old things could
hardly resist.
Inside, I kept looking up at
the ceiling, but the desire to
check what was there proved
stronger. I saw furniture and
papers that were in terrible
condition because they were
soaked in the water that
flowed in through the hole
on the roof. After taking
a closer look at the papers,
I regretted not having been
there earlier. I could surely
have saved them.
Looking for something
I could keep, I gathered up
several documents that shed
light on the history of the
town. My eye was caught by
a framed picture atop a heap
of trash on the floor of one of
the rooms. I picked it up, but
the glass was too dirty to see
the picture. Only at home
could I clean it delicately
and see what was there. It
turned out to be a religious
subject, a First Communion
Souvenir from the Oświęcim
parish church. There would
have been nothing remarkable about it if not for its
being dated June 15, 1940.
Mirosław Ganobis
VESTIGES OF HISTORY
P
FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF
THE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM
eople often ask where camp artists got their material from. What
materials did they use? The answer is simple—they used everything that was useful for the purpose.
tained. The fact that we were
crowded and uncomfortable,
or that two of my neighbors
were arguing right next to
me, meant nothing. This aesthetic experience brought us
into communion like prayer
and took us far away from
our surroundings.” This tiny
hare and many other figures
of animals were made from
the heads of toothbrushes
and combs by Stanisława
Panasowa-Stelmaszewska,
a prisoner in Ravensbrück
concentration camp. She
made miniature sculptures,
religious medallions, and
other tiny items for her fellow
prisoners from whatever material came to hand. “When-
Agnieszka Sieradzka
Collections Department
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Item from the head of a toothbrush,
made by Stanisława Panasowa-Stelmaszewska
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ever I came across a piece of
wood, whether it was in the
kitchen or outdoors, it was
mine,” she said after the war.
The tools she used included
a nail sharpened against a
tone, and her raw materials included a leg from the
washroom stool or the bits
of toothbrushes and combs
mentioned above.
The artist hid her “treasures”
and tools in a hole beneath the
block, which she covered over
with sand; alternatively, she
secreted these items in a tiny
bag tied beneath her skirt. She
made about a hundred items.
Few of them have survived,
but the Museum holds many
similar objects. The artists
are often unknown. Many of
them died, leaving only these
works behind.
Modeled in bread or soap,
filed in glass, made of string,
hair, or buttons, these small
objects, regardless of their
artistic value, represent important testimony today.
They are part of the story of
specific people, as well as
part of the tragic history of
Auschwitz.
photo: Mirosław Ganobis
photo: Collections Department A-BSM
Although artwork exposed
prisoners to danger, those
who had the chance and
a modicum of talent covertly
used every conceivable material to create various small
works.
For example, take this pink
hare, barely 15 mm. high,
made from the head of
a toothbrush. What such
a tiny sculpture could mean to
people locked behind barbed
wire was expressed by prisoner Urszula Wińska: “I took
out the little bag hidden in
my bosom, full of sculpted
wonders. I took them in my
hands one by one, gazed
at them, and experienced
the beauty that they con-
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Souvenir of First Communion
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Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 11, November 2009
Photographer
PHOTO REPORT
photo: Dominik Smolarek
photo: Dominik Smolarek
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photo: Dominik Smolarek
photo: Dominik Smolarek
photo: Dominik Smolarek
photo: Dominik Smolarek
photo: Dominik Smolarek
On October 18 a special concert of Śląsk Song and Dance Ensemble took place in St. Joseph the Worker church in Oświęcim. It was part of the
local celebrations of the Pope John II Year. The concert was organized to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first pilgrimage of the
Pope to Poland. We publish photostory from this event.
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