AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

On 24 June 2017, Judges of the International Criminal Court in The Hague visited the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial. The guests were greeted by the director of the Museum, Dr Piotr M.A. Cywiński, while the head of the Museum’s Research Centre, Dr Piotr Setkiewicz gave the judges an insight to the history of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

“Remembrance - Awareness - Responsibility” is the title of a documentary film jointly prepared by Telewizja Polska S.A. (Polish Television) and the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in connection with the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Museum. The project was implemented courtesy of financial support from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Prof. Piotr Gliński.

"Face to Face. Art in Auschwitz”, is the title of a unique exhibition that will be opened on 6 July 2017 in the Szołayski Tenement house, a branch of the National Museum in Cracow. The exhibition prepared on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Museum on the site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp will be the first of such comprehensive presentation of original works made in the camp by Auschwitz prisoners. The Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Prof. Piotr Gliński has assumed honorary patronage over the exhibition.

The Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löfven visited the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum on 20 June 2017. He was accompanied among other persons, by a survivor Livia Fränkel, born in 1927 in Hungary and deported to the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on 14 March 1944.

The Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation held its session on 19 June in Warsaw. The main objective of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation is to finance the conservation of the authentic remains of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. During the session, the members extended the term of office of Zbigniew Nosowski and Marek Zając, who was again elected as the Chairperson of the Council.

The Origins of the Birkenau Camp in the Light of the Source Materials—a new English-Polish publication of the Museum is an analysis of one hundred little-known German documents, the majority of them published for the first time, bearing on the origins of the Birkenau camp and the first phase of its operation. Authors of the analysis are historians of the Research Center of the Museum: Igor Bartosik, Łukasz Martyniak and Piotr Setkiewicz.