the Council members discussed recommendations for successors regarding the general and detailed direction of actions for the IAC, as well as the fundamental principles and values that should guide the Council. The list of recommendations shall be forwarded to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, whose advisory body is the International Auschwitz Council.
Non-involvement in ongoing politics; knowledge and expertise, as well as the international authority of members of the council; independence and underlining the international importance of the IAC; readiness to conduct dialogue on difficult, complicated and inconvenient issues, but also the ability to seek compromise and understanding; preserving memory and representing all the victims of Auschwitz; the importance of looking at the issues of memory from a long-term perspective; supporting the activities and development of all Memorial Sites in Poland and beyond, as well as developing good practices that could benefit other similar memorials, were some of the issues raised during the discussion on the tasks and recommendations for the International Auschwitz Council in the future.
"This council has acquired an opinion-forming status that goes beyond internal Polish affairs and beyond issues of the most important Memorials in Poland. This council has, in the last dozen or so years, received growing international recognition and authority, with a great ability to engage in dialogue and debate on very difficult subjects," said Director Cywiński. "These elements have helped to strengthen the global constants around this place, the memory of those victims and those people. It is something that requires the greatest protection for the future, regardless of issues that will be discussed in the future. The development of the Memorial that I presented would not have been possible without this field of mutual understanding between different groups, countries, opinions or viewpoints."
The IAC members also discussed topics such as the amendment to the Act on National Memorial Institutes, as well as plans for a museum dedicated to the residents of Oświęcim and the surrounding area who provided help to prisoners of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau during the war.