Presentations
Groups with special educational needs in memorial sites – Theory and practice
Speakers:
-Piotr Kondratowicz, Lower Silesia Special Education Center No. 12 for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Wrocław
-Dr. Marcin Owsiński, Stutthof Museum
-Gabriel Dittrich, Campus Christophorus Jugendwerk
-Leszek Szuster, International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim
Moderator: Aleksandra Kalisz
The four panel members presented projects implemented in their respective institutions regarding visitors with different special needs. The first speaker was Piotr Kondratowicz, an educator from the Lower Silesian Special Education Center No. 12 for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Wrocław. He impressed participants by introducing himself using sign language. A vibrant and intense silence floated in the air. He first thanked the museum on behalf of the young people he works with and who came to the Museum for an internship to help preserve the site. It was the first time in the history of the Memorial that a group of young men aged over 20 years old, comprised of deaf and hard of hearing students, implemented a project here and it was a successful one. The students wanted to express their gratitude because they felt really appreciated and needed. As an educator he teaches them carpentry and vocational classes such as renovation of antique furniture. During their experience in the Memorial, they had the chance to meet and work with “top-class heritage preservation officers and Museum workers” on the renovation of benches and an antique closet, with the help of cutting-edge equipment and machines in the field of preservation.
His presentation was also to make people aware of how deaf and hard of hearing persons actually experience memorial sites. The particularity of this deficiency is that we don’t immediately spot deaf people, which makes it difficult for them and for us to communicate and try to understand each other in the first place. As many as five million people in Poland have been diagnosed as hard of hearing. It is thanks to people such as Piotr Kondratowicz, working hand in hand with them, that they can understand what is happening in the world. “The deaf understand 30% of written articles in the papers. If the articles are translated into sign language, they will understand at least 70%.” When visiting a memorial site like Auschwitz-Birkenau, the difficulty lies in the fact that words like, for example, “gassing”, “gas chamber” and “ramp”, don’t exist in sign language. “Sign language is very poor. It is a skeleton language and it depends on the inventiveness of the interpreter and how the deaf will receive the information. I suppose that many of you saw that I mentioned lethal injections. I really didn’t know how we should show it. So, there was a scene where two colleagues had to immobilize a third colleague and I, as the interpreter, should stimulate the execution using a needle, a syringe that was introduced through the sternum, right through the person’s heart. We had to have this demonstration to show what lethal injection is.” He also mentioned that the same word for “air” and “gas” is used in sign language. Thus, it was impossible for them to understand or fathom throwing air into a room to kill people. They couldn’t figure it out. These examples and explanations helped participants to better understand and gain insight into their way of thinking and communicating. When being asked about the worst experience for them after the guided tour of the Museum, most of the students answered “standing cells”. Not because prisoners were unable to sit, as one could expect, but because deprived from their sight, imagining themselves in this position, they wouldn’t have been able to communicate at all.
They wouldn’t have been able to say that they were hungry or that they were afraid etc. The most moving moment during the visit was “when they learned that because of their disability they would never survive in the camp, they would have been killed right off.” They asked Piotr “Why? Why? We are healthy, of course we are healthy, we are just hard of hearing, we are just deaf, it’s impossible!” After that, they said that they needed to do anything in their power to be remembered and they are