In the second part of the visit, the guests saw the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, among others, a freight wagon standing on the unloading ramp, which from May 1944 was used to transport deportees to the camp - primarily Jews, from Hungary and the liquidated Litzmannstadt ghetto, but also Poles deported to Auschwitz from the Warsaw Uprising. At the ramp, the SS doctors conducted a selection of the newly-arrived Jews, usually referring most of the deportees to instant death in the gas chambers.
At the ramp, the director of the Auschwitz Museum Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński showed the guests one of the original passports from the Eiss Archive, which documents rescue operations conducted from Bern during World War II by the then Polish ambassador Aleksander Ładoś and his diplomats, as well as the cooperating Jewish organisations. During these operations, several thousand illegally obtained Latin American passports were issued, thereby saving the lives of several hundreds of people. These documents were recovered, thanks to the joint efforts of the Polish Embassy in Bern, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, where the Archive will be examined and preserved.
‘Auschwitz shows the infinite ability of humankind to dehumanise other human beings. This is a history of extreme dehumanisation. From the very beginning, the world realised that the remains of camps must serve as a dire warning. Nevertheless, in order for this warning to be effective, education has to stir people’s imagination of their own responsibility for fighting evil. Such attitude was demonstrated during the war by Polish diplomats, among other, in Switzerland who falsified documents like this one to save a fellow human,’ said Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
‘If we can arouse the human imagination, only then will memory succeed in changing views, behaviours and attitudes. Man must continuously feel the yoke of his daily responsibility for the modern world. That is why we teach about this tragic past,’ emphasised Piotr Cywiński.
The presidents also saw the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium III and laid grave candles at the monument commemorating the victims of the camp. At the end of the visit, President Andrzej Duda, Vice-President Mike Pence and their spouses signed into the Museum’s Visitor’s book.