We don’t feel anything negative on the physical side, not just here at the Museum, but also from the authorities. There is very good – excellent co-operation. They understand that we are an educational project, not dealing with politics. In our relations we have to stick to the truth and to the facts and we have said this. We don’t come here to create anything bad; we need to work together.
Every time there are politicians at MOTL, people ask – and you’ve probably also heard these voices - why are they in the March? Some people say that maybe there too many speeches and too strong a political presence. How do you do balance this?
That is a problem, and I agree with that 100%. The March is for the participants, mainly and majority youth. They come here to meet, to learn, to see to be part of the challenge to change the world to a better world! Those speeches and statements are not for them. But you can’t avoid it, you can’t do it without them. Of course we can say no, but if we hear that the President or Prime Minister wants to come, we are going to host and accommodate them. During the last march the ceremony was perhaps too long, but we also had a survivor speaking, Mr. Mossberg. We could have just stopped him, but it was the third time he’d come and wanted to express himself. We believe that it even made the ceremony longer – but survivors should be heard with a lot of respect and great honor. Maybe this makes it too long sometimes, but at the end, everybody was happy. We gave recognition not just to the politicians and their statements - and this was important - but also to the survivors and their memories, which is very important. By the way - how can you not present a statement from the Prime Minister of Canada, who very much supports the March? Are you not going to accept it? It’s only three or four minutes...I am sure the whole March, including the full visits to all parts of Poland, was a great success. We evaluated the groups, and we know that not everything was perfect, but it was close to perfect. I always tell Piotr Cywiński and Andrzej Kacorzyk that the co-operation here, at the Memorial and the way that you have dealt with us for so many years, is so good that I do not have words that can describe our satisfaction and thanks.
This is also something that I wanted to ask. 30 years of the MOTL also means 30 years of co-operation. It is a changing, developing institution.
We started very modestly: we just marched. I was very friendly with Mr. Wróblewski. The first years with the Museum were quite tough, but slowly and with time, we both learned how to accept each other and we became very good friends. Now, we are working towards the same goals, same vision, with the same tools of education.
Photo: March of the Living