"Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away" Exhibition
According to the jury this awareness-raising and educational project preserves the memory of one of the worst episodes in the history of humanity and is based on deep, scientific, historical research.
„The topic is communicated in a direct and accessible way for different audiences without lessening its importance and has already reached an impressive number of visitors. The exhibition is supported by social media dissemination of the contents in order to approach a young audience and to maintain the remembrance of the victims of Auschwitz,” stated the jury.
“A strong network of institutions was engaged in the project and it is an example of good practice for partnerships between non-profit and for-profit organisations. The exhibition opens up the platform for increasing the knowledge, collection and interpretation of the documentation. Its display succeeded in recreating the emotional experience of visiting the real site, which is challenging for a travelling exhibition and is thanks in part to the richness of the content,” the Jury continued.
The first presentation of the exhibition took place in Madrid where it was visited by over 600 thousand people. Now it is displayed in the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. Featuring more than 700 original objects, the New York presentation of the exhibition allow visitors to experience artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz.
Other artifacts include concrete posts that were part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp; fragments of an original barrack for prisoners from the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the SS; Pablo Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made Model 2 freight wagon used for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.
The European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards were launched by the European Commission in 2002 and have been run by Europa Nostra ever since. This year This year, Europe’s top honor in the heritage field went to 21 exemplary achievements from 15 European countries. Musealia and the Auschwitz Memorial received the award in “Education, Training and Awareness-rising” category.
The awards celebrate and promote best practices related to heritage conservation, research, management, volunteering, education and communication. In this way, they contribute to a stronger public recognition of cultural heritage as a strategic resource for Europe’s society, economy and environment. The Awards are funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Heritage supporters from Europe and all around the world can vote online for their favorite award winners and decide which achievement will win this year’s Public Choice Award. In times of confinement and physical distancing, the European Commission and Europa Nostra hope to inspire a particularly large number of people to discover this year’s award-winning achievements. The Public Choice Award will be announced after the summer.
More information:
New international travelling exhibition on the history of Auschwitz opened in Madrid
A huge success of the Auschwitz exhibition in Madrid
Plakat wyborczy z 1932 roku promujący kandydaturę Adolfa Hitlera w wyborach Reichsprasident. Przedstawiając Hitlera jako silnego lidera odwołuje się on do dzielonego przez naród niemiecki strachu przed biedą i nędzą. Zbiory Biblioteki Wiener Holocaust Library.