Regarding the experience of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, technology and virtuality have always been used cautiously. Every project linked with the introduction of a technological tool (the website, Facebook page, virtual panoramas etc.) gave way to debate. The fear was for visitors to lose interest in visiting the place because of the online access to the virtual tour or simply information. But the contrary appears to be true. More visitors were attracted to the memorial site after finding out information about it online. The question raised by Mr. Bartosz Bartyzel was not if we should use it, but rather how to use it. According to him, the virtual world is here and we cannot avoid it, but how should we use it to support memorial sites? “How to do it, respecting our ideas, our space, should always be debated.”
Dr. Anna Ziółkowska has more reservations about the subject: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a problem with the use of websites and materials and preserving the authenticity of the memorial site. How can the memorial site be equipped with multimedia? We should adopt some form of conservatism […] The authenticity of this place, the tragedy that took place there decades before requires silence.”
Piotr Tarnowski gave examples of how technology could serve the transmission of history, by presenting actual tools that are used in the Stutthof Museum. There is a pre-visit experience online that prepares visitors and gives them general information before coming to the authentic place. They also use an audio guide that was created by a former prisoner. “It is narrated by a former prisoner, which helps people to relate better to the place itself.” The Director also emphasized that recordings of witness accounts are “of great value, because people can listen to the actual voices of the people who experienced history.” He gives one specific example that is part of a recent exhibition about the
extermination of the Jews at the Stutthof camp. “At the final stage of the visit, there is a recording made by a son who recorded his own father, and the father tells the story of his stay at a concentration camp. You listen to the voice and you get a sense of emotion, you see the face of this person, you see the emotions running through his face, and we believe that this video was the perfect combination and the perfect closing for the exhibition.” If virtual and technological tools can help memorials to rationalize space, the Director thinks that the virtual and physical worlds can coexist.
Question n°3: Considering the stages of the Second World War, how can we speak about the cause, the effect and prevention in memorial sites? How do we identify perpetrators? How do we act in the process and how do we prepare people before they visit the site?
For Piotr Tarnowski, it all depends on where or when we start to tell the story of WWII. The social factor needs to be considered to answer this question. “You should first identify the starting point of the story you want to tell to make sure that the story is understandable to the public. The starting point is not Hitler’s rise to power, because the received knowledge is that Hitler rose to power illegally, he created the Gestapo and then he started the war. I myself saw a building on Rügen Island and in that building, 40,000 workers could holiday together. It was called Prora. Those people [workers], we can say, were bought, were acquired earlier at some point. Co-operation with the regime did not necessarily have to be the result of that. What was sufficient in this context was simply indifference.” For the Director, while educating about this period of history, we need to emphasize not only the collaborators/perpetrators role but also the danger of bystanders’ inaction.