THE DIRECTOR
OF THE AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL
dr piotr m. a. cywiński
There were also children in the camp.
They were murdered and were dying.
The children.
Full of innocence, trust, willingness and dreams.
Little Jewish and Roma children,
Polish children from the Zamość region, Belarusian children from the Grodno region,
Children brought from Warsaw during the
Uprising…
Children were also born in the camp.
Instead of coming to this world, their lives would come to their end here.
Over two hundred thousand children-victims.
A few hundred survivors.
As it is impossible to bring the victims back to life,
a child-survivor would not have their childhood
restored either.
The childhood in the frantic world of the adults.
While looking into the eyes of the youngest victims of Auschwitz,
one cannot but ask about ourselves, the post-war generation.
As today the children are also murdered, they are sold,
abused as slaves, hungry and starved, abandoned and lonely!
So why do we feel so distant from the era of the camps?
Never before were the people as powerful and skilful as today.
Whereas we all care more about
our own convenience in our world
than for creating a better world for the children and the entire future.
We want the children to respect other people…
But do we respect their opinions?
We want the children to trust others…
But are we able to trust them?
We want the children to behave responsibly…
But don’t we disregard their problems?
We want the children to grow up being loved…
But do we make them feel that we love them?
We want them to be able to react to evil…
And we do almost nothing in front of their eyes!
Janusz Korczak used to warn:
“We cannot leave the world as it is!”
The future is not
what will come someday, later, on its own!
It is already here, already alive and developing
in our intentions,
in our choices
and in our indifference.
Today, where can the future be seen better than in our today’s passivity,
inability to react, to give a helping hand?
We delude ourselves that wars, disasters or pandemics change the world.
But our passivity is the greatest source of victims.
And among them, the weakest, the most trustful and innocent