The meanings of Auschwitz in Poland, 1945 to the present

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the development of the symbolic meanings of Auschwitz in Poland since the end of the Second World War, taking into account the context of Polish history and memory, in particular the memory of the Holocaust and disputes surrounding it. Analyzing various kinds of representations, the article examines chronologically the major symbolisms of the former camp – Polish, international, universalist, and Jewish – as well as pointing to others, and identifying the periods of their development. The article argues that Auschwitz has had various meanings in Poland. At present, it is, among others, a symbol of the Holocaust, but not the symbol thereof.

KEYWORDS:

• Auschwitz
• Poland
• World War II
• Holocaust
• memory
• representations

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim for permission to use the photographs from its archives (APMAB). The views expressed in this paper are those of the author, not those of the Council, the Center or the Museum.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Marek Kucia is Professor of the Social Sciences at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. His major research interests are Holocaust memory and the memory of Auschwitz in Poland. On the former, he has carried out a project on the Europeanization of Holocaust memory and Eastern Europe, awarded a Marie Curie fellowship. On the latter, he has conducted numerous research projects, including ones for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. His publications include articles in English, German, Hebrew and Polish, and the book (in Polish) Auschwitz as a Social Fact: The History, Present and Social Consciousness of KL Auschwitz in Poland (2005). Marek Kucia serves as the Chairman of the Council of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birnenau State Museum.

ORCID

Marek Kucia http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0116-7841

Notes

1. Huener, Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979.

2. Kapralski, “The Role Played by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum,” 605–33.

3. Kucia, Auschwitz jako fakt społeczny.

4. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead.

5. Webber, “Personal Reflections on Auschwitz Today,” 281–91.

6. Wóycicka, “Zur ‘Internationalität’ der Gedenkkultur,” 269–92; Arrested Mourning.

7. Zubrzycki, The Crosses of Auschwitz.

8. Szmaglewska, Dymy nad Birkenau.

9. Nałkowska, Medaliony.

10. Borowski, “Proszę państwa do gazu.”

11. Ustawa z dnia 2 lipca 1947 r. o upamiętnieniu męczeństwa Narodu Polskiego i innych Narodów w Oświęcimiu.

12. Author’s verbatim translation from Polish: ‘Pamięci milionów Żydów męczenników i bojowników zgładzonych w obozie Oświęcim-Brzezinki przez hitlerowskich ludobójców 1940–1945.’ Photograph of the monument: Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Photograph No. 52 8304. On the origins of the monument: Wóycicka, Arrested Mourning, 254–5.

13. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, Chapter 3.

14. Young, The Texture of Memory, 25.

15. Huener, Auschwitz, Poland and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, 77.

16. The objective of the Warsaw Rising, staged by the Home Army, whose allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, was to seize Poland’s capital city from the Germans before the arrival of the Soviets. See: Davies, Rising ’44.

17. Huener, Auschwitz, Poland and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, Chapter 5. Cf. Wóycicka, “Zur ‘Internationalität’ der Gedenkkultur.”

18. There was a flag of Poland and those of 23 other states, placed in alphabetical order (according to the states’ names in Polish): Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), France, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Israel, Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Norway, Romania, the United States of America, Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Protokół [z inwentaryzacji wystawy ogólnej]).

19. The album was found by chance after the war by Lili Jacob, a former prisoner of Auschwitz, in another camp where she was liberated. Several reproductions of the album’s photographs have been displayed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum since 1956. The original album was deposited by Jacob at Yad Vashem. See its full critical edition: The Auschwitz Album.

20. There were inscriptions in (1) Polish, (2) English, (3) Bulgarian, (4) Romani, (5) Czech, (6) Danish, (7) French, (8) Greek, (9) Hebrew, (10) Yiddish, (11) Spanish, (12) Flemish, (13) Serbo-Croatian, (14) German, (15) Norwegian, (16) Russian, (17) Romanian, (18) Hungarian, and (19) Italian.

21. The text of the English plaque. The text of the Polish plaque read: ‘Miejsce męczeństwa / i śmierci 4 milionów / ofiar zamordowanych / przez ludobójców / hitlerowskich / 1940–1945,’ which literally translates as ‘The site of martyrdom / and death of four million / victims murdered / by the Hitlerite / perpetrators of genocide / 1940–1945.’

22. Author’s translation of the Polish original:

Bohaterom Oświęcimia, którzy ponieśli tu śmierć / walcząc przeciwko hitlerowskiemu ludobójstwu / o wolność i godność człowieka / o pokój i braterstwo narodów / w hołdzie dla ich męczeństwa i bohaterstwa / nadaje / Order Krzyża Grunwaldu I Klasy [.] / Rada Państwa / Polskiej Rzeczpospolitej Ludowej / 16 kwietnia 1967.

23. Young, The Texture of Memory, 139–41 claims that this centerpiece of the main motif was placed on the monument ‘at the last minute’ before dedication, replacing ‘three abstract figures […]: two parents and a child,’ symbolizing Jews, that were ‘moved […] to the ground.’ No matter whether or not and when this change was made, the central motif of the monument is different to that in its final model (see the photographs in Young, 138–39, 140, especially that of the model, No. 21680/1).

24. Cf. Wóycicka, “Zur ‘Internationalität’ der Gedenkkultur.”

25. Huener, Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, 176–83.

26. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, Chapters 3, 4, and 5.

27. Sprawozdania roczne.

28. Bartoszewski, The Convent at Auschwitz.

29. “Auschwitz Concentration Camp”.

30. Webber, “Personal Reflections on Auschwitz Today,” 284.

31. Levy and Sznaider, “Memory Unbound.”

32. For a detailed discussion of the controversy and its background, see: Bartoszewski, The Convent at Auschwitz; Klein, The Battle for Auschwitz; Rittner and Roth, Memory Offended.

33. For more on these and other debates and their role in the development of Holocaust memory in Poland, see: Forecki, Reconstructing Memory.

34. Klein, The Battle for Auschwitz.

35. For an account of the ‘war of the crosses,’ see: Klein, The Battle for Auschwitz; Zubrzycki, The Crosses of Auschwitz.

36. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, Chapters 6 and 7.

37. In 2014 the exhibit comprised sixteen photographs showing Poles loaded onto the first mass transport to Auschwitz, Franciscan monks after their arrest in a Polish monastery, Polish civilians expelled from the Zamość region, Polish civilians arrested during the Warsaw Rising, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma (Gypsies) expelled from a Polish village, and Jews in eight ghettoes or deportation sites – Pithiviers, Łódź, Drancy, Theresienstadt, Thessaloniki, Amsterdam, Budapest, and Würzburg.

38. Piper, Ilu ludzi zginęło w KL Auschwitz, 12. Piper added: ‘These are minimal estimates […], but the real number of Auschwitz victims did not exceed 1.5 million.’ See also Idem, “Estimating the Number of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp.”

39. Piper, Ilu ludzi zginęło w KL Auschwitz, 122.

40. The languages were the following: (1) Belarusian, (2) Czech, (3) German, (4) French, (5) Greek, (6) Hebrew, (7) Croatian, (8) Italian, (9) Yiddish, (10) Hungarian, (11) Dutch, (12) Norwegian, (13) Polish, (14) Russian, (15) Romani (Gypsy), (16) Romanian, (17) Slovak, (18) Serbian, (19) Ukrainian, and (20) English. In 2002 and 2008 two other plaques were added with inscriptions in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and Slovene.

41. The Polish inscription reads:

Niechaj na wieki będzie / krzykiem rozpaczy / i przestrogi dla ludzkości / to miejsce, / w którym hitlerowcy / wymordowali / około półtora miliona / mężczyzn, kobiet i dzieci, / głównie Żydów / z różnych krajów Europy. / Auschwitz-Birkenau / 1940–45.

42. Ustawa z dnia 7 maja 1999 r. o ochronie terenów byłych hitlerowskich obozów zagłady (Dz. U. 1999 nr 41 poz. 412).

43. Sprawozdanie / Report.

44. Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.

45. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on the Holocaust Remembrance.

46. Auschwitz Birkenau: German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–1945).

47. In 2010 the museum began work on the conception for a new Polish exhibition. See: “New Exhibition about Polish Citizens will be Created in Auschwitz.”

48. The question was designed by CBOS, a leading Polish public opinion research organization. It was asked in their surveys and also included in other surveys designed by Kucia. All surveys were done through face-to-face interviews in respondents’ homes with random samples representative of Poland’s population aged 18 and over (by CBOS) or 16 and over (by TNS OBOB). To make it possible to compare the results, TNS OBOP’s results were calculated for respondents aged 18 years and over. Fieldwork dates, sample sizes (samples for comparison), and fieldwork agencies were the following: (1) 13–16 January 1995: 1011 respondents, CBOS; (2) 3–6 February 1995: 1223 respondents, CBOS; (3) 8–12 February 1996: 1200 respondents, CBOS; (4) 15–17 January, 2000: 1008 (950) respondents, TNS OBOP; (5) 29–31 January, 2000: 1111 (1045) respondents, TNS OBOP; (6) 28 January – 1 February 2005: 1133 respondents, CBOS; (7) 7–10 January 2010: 1001 (984) respondents, TNS OBOP; (8) 8–14 January 2015: 1005 respondents, CBOS. For a deeper analysis and discussion of the results of this and other questions, see Kucia, “Auschwitz in the Historical Consciousness of the Poles – February 1996”; “KL Auschwitz in the Social Consciousness of Poles, 2000 A.D.,” 632–51; and “Auschwitz in the Perception of Contemporary Poles,” 191–206.

49. Gross, Sąsiedzi.