international travelling exhibition on the history of Auschwitz opens in Madrid
Almost 73 years after the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, its history and meaning is told in a new monographic travelling exhibition "Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away". It's the largest exhibition of its kind dedicated to the topic of Auschwitz and the Holocaust in history.
All photos in this article: Paweł Sawicki
The exhibition was conceived and designed by Musealia and its international curatorial team of experts, including Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt and Paul Salmons, in an unprecedented collaboration with the experts from the Auschwitz Memorial: curators of our collections, conservators, archivists and historians from the Research Center headed by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz.
Across 2,500 square meters the exhibition displays more than 600 original objects, most of them belonging to the Auschwitz Memorial Collections. The project also involves specific loans from various international institutions, such as Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
Visitors can see hundreds of personal items that belonged to people deported to Auschwitz; fragments of an original barracks for prisoners from Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; the desk of the first Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess; a gas mask used by the SS garrison; and an original German-made Model 2 freight wagon used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German National Railway) during World War II for the transport of soldiers, prisoners of war, and for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.
"Today, the world is moving in uncertain directions. Auschwitz is not only an extremely painful memory of the past. Today, as in so many countries we feel an alarming increase of antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, the history of Auschwitz is unfortunately taking on a new, meaningful role as a warning for the future," said the Director of the Auschwitz Museum Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.
"Peace is not given once and for all. That is why we all should safeguard equality of rights, respect, fundamental human rights and democracy on a daily basis in our lives, in our reality and within our reach. Passivity and consent are concepts almost equivalent to the cause of evil," he added.
The exhibition will stay at the Arte Canal Exhibition Center in Madrid until June 17, 2018. Over the next 7 years it will visit a total of 14 cities around the world.
More information: auschwitz.net
Paweł Sawicki