{"id":13094,"date":"2022-01-26T07:24:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T15:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13094"},"modified":"2022-01-29T07:25:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T15:25:03","slug":"the-biggest-task-is-to-combat-indifference-auschwitz-museum-turns-visitors-eyes-to-current-events-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=13094","title":{"rendered":"“\u2018The biggest task is to combat indifference\u2019: Auschwitz Museum turns visitors\u2019 eyes to current events”, The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shaun Walker in O\u015bwi\u0119cim, 26 January 2020<\/p>\n

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Director wants visit to former Nazi concentration camp to spark reflection on \u2018silence of bystander<\/em>s\u2019<\/p>\n\"Holocaust<\/picture>Holocaust survivors walk with others through the main gate of the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.<\/span> Photograph: Czarek Soko\u0142owski\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n

P<\/span><\/span>iotr Cywi\u0144ski has spent a lot of time pondering a question that has exercised historians, philosophers and politicians ever since the end of the second world war. What lessons should we draw from one of the darkest pages in human history, the organised mass killing at Auschwitz<\/a>?<\/span><\/p>\n

A 49-year-old Polish historian, Cywi\u0144ski has been director of the Auschwitz Museum since 2006. His office is housed in a former hospital and pharmacy built for the camp\u2019s SS guards, and his windows look out over a crematorium and gas chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest task for remembrance today is to combat indifference,\u201d he said in an interview ahead of the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which is also Holocaust Memorial Day, and is marked on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can massacre tens of thousands of Rohingya, you can put 1.5 million Uyghurs in camps, in Yemen people are suffering because they do not have anything to eat, and we don\u2019t feel concerned in our world,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n

Nazi Germany deported about 1.3 million people to Auschwitz and 1.1 million of them died there, 90% of them Jewish. The museum, on the edge of the Polish town of O\u015bwi\u0119cim, is housed in the preserved original buildings of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the ruins of the neighbouring Birkenau extermination camp.<\/p>\n

Cywi\u0144ski said that while the events of the Holocaust could not be compared to the present day, \u201cthe silence of bystanders\u201d is a topic he wants visitors to the museum to think about and apply to their own lives.<\/p>\n

As well as combatting a world in which indifference and ignorance about the Holocaust<\/a> are rising, Cywi\u0144ski also has to contend with the current Polish government, which has made a nationalist narrative emphasising Polish martyrdom and suffering a major part of its political message.<\/p>\n

The government funds the Auschwitz museum and appoints its director, and Cywi\u0144ski\u2019s tenure is up for renewal at the end of this year. Many fear he may be replaced by a more ideological pro-government figure, as has happened at some other Polish museums. The Polish culture ministry said it was \u201cpremature\u201d to discuss whether he would be reappointed later this year.<\/p>\n

The Auschwitz Museum contains some of the most shocking and disturbing exhibits on display anywhere in the world. Once seen, they remain etched into the minds of many visitors for the rest of their lives: the two tonnes of human hair, the tens of thousands of shoes and the piles of suitcases with names scrawled on the sides, symbols of the false hope with which many arrived at the camp.<\/p>\n

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Cywi\u0144ski wants to retain these gruesome artefacts, aware of the dark power that radiates from their authenticity, but also to add a new part of the exhibition, that will focus on the SS and the Nazi camp administration.<\/p>\n

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\"Piotr<\/picture><\/div>
Piotr Cywi\u0144ski.<\/span> Photograph: Jakub Kami\u0144ski\/East News\/Rex\/Shutterstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe have to show that this was not an isolated place that suddenly appeared but it was a project that was created, built and grew during that time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the ceremony to mark 75 years of liberation in 2020<\/a>, Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski told the assembled dignitaries that \u201cAuschwitz did not fall from the sky\u201d. He warned of the dangers of discriminating against any minority. \u201cDemocracy hinges on the rights of minorities being protected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While the museum will remain firmly focused on the terrible events that happened there, Cywi\u0144ski is this week launching the Auschwitz Pledge Foundation, which will distribute grants to groups across the world fighting indifference to hatred.<\/p>\n

The foundation\u2019s general director, Jacek Kastelaniec, said projects that tackled antisemitism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and discrimination against migrants and refugees would all be eligible for funding.<\/p>\n

This is where things get tricky for Cywi\u0144ski, given that he serves at the pleasure of a government that has frequently demonised refugees, and recently ran a presidential campaign based almost entirely around anti-LGBT rhetoric<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a 2017 speech at Auschwitz, the then prime minister, Beata Szyd\u0142o, said the history of the camp showed that \u201ceverything must be done to defend the safety and the lives of citizens\u201d. The remarks were widely interpreted as a defence of the government\u2019s anti-migration policy.<\/p>\n

Last year, the government put Szyd\u0142o on to the board of a council that oversees the Auschwitz Museum\u2019s activities, leading three of its members to resign.<\/p>\n

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