AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

The President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, visited the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum on November 21. This was the first visit of a representative of this republic in Micronesia to the former German concentration and extermination camp.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, visited the Auschwitz Memorial Site and Museum on November 18. The visit, above all, paid tribute to victims of the camp but also emphasized the importance of the UN work for tolerance, peace and genocide prevention. During the visit the access of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Memorial — at the invitation of the UN — to the United Nations Academic Impact was announced.

On 8th November at the Auschwitz Memorial Site, the inaugural course of “ABCs of Christian- and Polish-Jewish Relations” was held. 49 individuals took part in the course — including students, post-graduates, teachers and educators as well as pastoral workers, catechists, guides, the staff of museums and other cultural institutions and the media. Classes will run until April next year.

The ceremonial opening of the “Forbidden Art” exhibition took place at the New York Park East Synagogue. The exhibition, prepared by the Auschwitz Museum, presents the story of 20 work of arts made illegally and at great risk by prisoners of the German Nazi concentration camp. Among the guests were ambassadors, consuls and diplomats from 18 countries, including: the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland — Ryszard Schnepf, Poland’s Ambassador to the UN — Ryszard Sarkowicz, Consul General of Israel in New York — Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Poland in New York — Ewa Junczyk Ziomecka, as well as a representative of the Friends of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation — Martin Karlinsky.

“Auschwitz: Memory and Education in the Context of European Identity” is the title of this year’s seminar for educators and teachers from the member states of the Council of Europe, which took place in Kraków and Oświęcim between October 26 and 31, 2013. Methods of teaching about the Holocaust, as well as the situation of handicapped people during the Nazi times were the main issues discussed in the course of the training.

Conservation of relics which remain after the camp bathhouse has commenced. The historical object in the area of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz I was located between blocks 1 and 2. Today’s very bad condition of the preserved historical ruins determined their urgent protection.