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O Ś WIĘ CIM ISSN 1899-4407 PEOPLE CULTURE HISTORY THE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROMA A BUDDHIST AND A SIKH ON RECONCILIATION A BRIDGE TO HISTORY AND A BRIDGE OF FRIENDSHIP THROUGH THE EYES OF THE CONSUL EXHIBITION no. 8 August 2009 Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 8, August 2009 EDITORIAL BOARD: Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine EDITORIAL This year we mark the 65th anniver- excerpts from a lecture given at can undergraduates and graduates sary of the liquidation by the Nazis the Galicia Museum in Cracow in to Poland, where they learn about of the so-called Gypsy family camp early July by two religious leaders Polish-Jewish history and work in Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the who were guests of the Center for on their own educational projects. night of August 2/3, 1944, the Nazis Dialogue and Prayer, Bhai Sahib We also write about a photogra- murdered 2,897 men, women, and Mohinder Singh, the leader of the phy exhibition at the IYMC, titled children in the gas chamber—the British Sikhs, and Master Hsin Tao Through the Eyes of the Consul, by the last of the approximately 23 thou- Shih, a Buddhist teacher and the former German consul in Cracow, Editor: sand Roma deported to Auschwitz. founder of the Museum of World Adolf Müller, and about an origi- Paweł Sawicki In Oś you will find extensive cover- Religions in Taipei. The subject of nal Righteous among the Nations Editorial secretary: age of the observances, fragments the lecture was Healing Wounds: of the World Medal, awarded to Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka of accounts recalling the events of The Road to Peace and Reconciliation. former prisoner Maria Kotarba, that Editorial board: 65 years ago, and information about In Oś, you will also find an inter- has been donated to the Museum. Bartosz Bartyzel a new volume in the Voices of Mem- esting interview with participants Wiktor Boberek ory series, dedicated to the story of in the Jewish Center “Bridge to Paweł Sawicki Jarek Mensfelt Jadwiga Pinderska-Lech the Roma prisoners of Auschwitz. History” program. This summer Editor-in-chief Leszek Szuster We also draw your attention to scholarship program brings Ameri- [email protected] Artur Szyndler Columnist: Mirosław Ganobis Design and layout: Agnieszka Matuła, Grafi kon A GALLERY Translations: William Brand Proofreading: OF THE 20TH CENTURY Beata Kłos Cover: Paweł Sawicki It’s time to go for a train ride. get onto the platform without a ticket, fore belonged to the railroad even after A few refl ections are in order after either a regular one-way or round- the completion of the journey. Photographer: Tomasz Mól a visit to our Oświęcim train station, trip ticket or what was known as These were not communist-era ab- which is not so bad in comparison a “platform ticket”—a little chit that surdities. They dated back to before with some others. This public facility gave you one-time admission to the the war, and surely, indeed, to the should be respectable and tidy, since platform, for instance when say- earliest days of train travel. PUBLISHER: some of our guests arrive by train. It’s ing farewell to loved ones as they set The current Oświęcim train station the fi rst thing they see when they ar- off. Inside the station building, there dates from the 1960s. Its predecessor Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum rive, and serves as their introduction was a barrier and a booth containing was a barracks-like structure built of to the town. We have nothing to be a railroad employee who checked to wood and plastered over. It was nei- www.auschwitz.org.pl ashamed of. see that everyone going onto the plat- ther functional nor attractive—and Now for a few refl ections on bygone form had a ticket. Arriving passengers those were the days when the rail- railroad customs and procedures. also had to go through this gate and roads were king! PARTNERS: There was a time when you couldn’t hand in their used tickets, which there- 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 www.pwsz-oswiecim.pl 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 Oświęcim train station. Photograph from Mirosław Ganobis’s collection “A Gallery of the 20th Century” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 8, August 2009 Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum ROMA MEMORY new volume of Voices of Memory, de- voted to the destruction of the Roma Ain the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, will appear in cooperation between the Interna- tional Center for Education about Ausch- witz and the Holocaust and the Association of Roma in Poland. “Teachers have a great Voices of Memory will be need for educational ma- an excellent history les- terial on the Roma who son, for those of us who are died in Auschwitz,” said the heirs of the ‘Auschwitz ICEAH Director Krystyna generation,’ but above all Oleksy. “That is why we for young people,” said decided on this joint pub- Roman Kwiatkowski, pres- lishing initiative. People ident of the Association of often forget that, after Jews Roma in Poland. “From its and Poles, Roma were the pages we hear the voices third largest group of vic- of the people who are no tims at Auschwitz. I hope longer among us, who were that the new publication stripped of their human- will lead to greater aware- ity and ultimately of their ness of the tragic fate of lives by the Nazi perpetra- the Sinti and Roma during tors only because they were the Second World War, born Roma. The individual especially because the ma- voices will allow the book terial will be published in to bring home the criminal both Polish and English.” mechanism of Nazism and Joanna Talewicz-Kwia- will be a reminder for those tkowska, a doctoral stu- of us alive today. We need dent at the Jagiellonian to remember that, despite University, will be the the differences separating author of the scholarly them, people think and article on the Roma Hol- feel the same in the face of ocaust and the Roma in pain, suffering, and death. Auschwitz. She and the It is this universal dimen- staff of the Museum Re- sion, in addition to the search Department are educational and research collecting accounts and value, that makes this documents that will fea- publication exceptional.” ture in the book. Publica- Each publication in the tion is planned for 2010. Voices of Memory series is photo: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Elisabeth Emmler of Germany with her children. The whole family was deported to Auschwitz on March 8, 1943 It is estimated that about 23 thousand Roma men, and imprisoned in the Zigeunerlager family camp. They all died in Auschwitz. women, and children were deported to Auschwitz. About 20 thousand of them died there or were mur- dered in the gas chambers. The remainder were trans- devoted to one of the many of documents from various Liquidation, and Liberation ferred to other camps. The Nazis placed the Roma in issues in the history of the Nazi German bureaus and of Auschwitz, Medical Ex- a special “family camp” in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Auschwitz camp. The camp departments, and periments, and Hospitals It existed for 17 months, until August 2, 1944. That books contain introduc- excerpts from the accounts in Auschwitz. They are evening, the 2,897 Roma remaining in the camp were tory research articles that submitted after the war by all available in the online loaded onto trucks and taken to the gas chamber. offer a thorough discus- former prisoners, a price- bookstore, in Polish and They tried to resist, but the SS overcame their resist- sion of the subject and less source of information. English. ance brutally. a selection of source mate- So far, three volumes have rial. There are also copies appeared: The Evacuation, Agnieszka Juskowiak-Sawicka BUILDING A BRIDGE OF FRIENDSHIP educators from Israel attended a 12-day seminar on “Auschwitz in the Collective Awareness in Poland and 25 the World: The Role and Signifi cance of the Memory of Auschwitz-Birkenau for Jews and Poles,” organized by the Muse- um’s International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. The participants included pany young Israelis to Po- the Auschwitz-Birkenau staff from the Yad Vashem land, and educators from Beit site, as well as lectures and Memorial Institute in Jerusa- Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghetto workshops on the history lem (the country’s main insti- Heroes’ Kibbutz) and the of the German occupation tution for Holocaust history), Massuah Institute. of Poland, the history of the guides to the Yad Vashem The seminar schedule in- Auschwitz camp, the fate photo: Jarek Mensfelt museum, guides who accom- cluded specialist visits to of Polish prisoners, ques- Participants of the seminar 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 8, August 2009 tions of confl icts between a dream of mine. I simply tion between Polish and have time for both meet- Polish and Jewish memory, wanted to learn more. This Israeli institutions. ings and visits to the sites. Polish-Jewish relations, the is very important to me,” “I think that this is very im- I think the meetings are political history of Poland said seminar participant portant and that the maxi- very important.

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