Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Poland
Click here for an Overview of Holocaust-related activities in Poland
'Holocaust. Voices of Scholars', Cracow 2009
Edited by: Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs
Publisher: Centre for Holocaust Studies - Jagiellonian University, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
297 pp., 15 x 21 cm, hard cover
ISBN: 978-83-89129-88-8
International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust
The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust has prepared a Polish-English folder covering its activities. Divided into thematic chapters, the guide recounts the founding of the Center, its educational work, and information on volunteer programs and educational publications. There is also a detailed list of the Center's educational offerings for teachers, educators, and secondary-school and university-level students interested in enhancing their knowledge of the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Report 2008
To this day, Auschwitz remains the most eloquent place for forming the consciences of people who take responsibility for the future of our societies, nations, and states. After more than sixty years, people from all over the world continue to come here to see the ruins of the death factory. Those ruins speak to everyone's imagination. Only a shared effort will make it possible to preserve the authenticity of this place and its message. In 2008, we laid the groundwork for a special Fund for the preservation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. We believe that the democratic countries of this world, and people who realize how fragile this world is, will support us.
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An Overview of Holocaust-related activities in Poland
Poland - the first country to fight Hitler - became the place where millions of Jews perished during World War Two. Six Nazi German death camps were established on occupied Polish soil.
We shall never forget that in 1939 Polish Jews fought against the German invaders, and in 1943 they were the first to stage civilian uprisings. Our special concern for the preservation of Holocaust sites and memories of the Holocaust is a way to honour the victims and caution future generations. It is our firm belief that Poland should never again be too weak to protect all its citizens. Finally, we believe in the continuation of Polish-Jewish history of which the Holocaust was certainly not the last chapter.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland
| Number of Polish citizens of Jewish origin living in Poland in 1939: around 3.5 million. Number of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust: over 300000 (most of them in the Soviet Union, around 50000 on occupied Polish territory). Major academic centres offering courses on the Holocaust: Warsaw, Kraków, Lublin, Wrocław, Poznan, Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Opole, Rzeszów. Holocaust Memorial Days: January 27th, April 19th. Holocaust denial: a marginal, virtually nonexistent phenomenon in Poland: so far only one university professor has been convicted of denying facts concerning the Holocaust (a crime punishable by the Polish Penal Code). |
Poland's commitment to education, remembrance and promotion of Holocaust research is primarily determined by two factors: our history and our geographical location. Poland, not by its own will, was chosen by the Third Reich as the place where the Holocaust would be perpetrated. The future victims of the Nazis were transported to Poland from all corners of Europe and even North Africa. Hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews and those from other countries were herded into ghettos where they were decimated by hunger and disease. The survivors were taken to concentration and death camps. Yet, we should also remember that Jews, as soldiers of the Polish Army, fought against the German invaders from the first hours of the war. Jews were also the first in Europe to stage civilian uprisings against the Germans; they took place in Warsaw and Białystok.
Remembrance of the war in Poland is multifaceted: it involves the annihilation of the Jews and the suffering of the Polish people. We look with sadness and regret at those pages of our history that recall shameful deeds. The fact that some Poles killed their Jewish neighbours, or denounced fugitive Jews to the Gestapo, fills us with sincere pain and utmost condemnation. But we also remember and admire the valour of very many Poles who risked their lives to help their Jewish compatriots.
Also, we are aware and proud of the thousand-year-long Polish-Jewish history. We embrace as our own the heritage of Polish Jews, many of whom have enhanced the international stature of Poland.
Education
Holocaust education is mandatory in Polish secondary schools. A special curriculum has been prepared by specialists in the field. Teachers use the first professional textbook "The Holocaust: Understanding Why?" published in 2003. Every year over 100000 Polish high school students visit former death camps, where they participate in educational programmes. Teachers take part in courses offered by the International Centre for Education on Auschwitz and the Holocaust, the National In-Service Teacher Training Centre, as well as by Polish universities.
Educational Museum
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is scheduled to open in 2011 as a multimedia educational and cultural centre. It will present 1000 years of the history of Polish Jews.
Museum staff conducts diverse educational and outreach programs. All such programs include workshops devoted to Polish-Jewish history as well as visits and joint ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka. Israeli and Polish high-school students jointly create internet blogs about Poland's Righteous Gentiles and about the people they saved. This project is partially sponsored by the ITF.
NGO's and local government
Many Holocaust related programmes are being launched by various NGOs and municipal institutions, for instance: "Centre for Civic Education," "The Jews in Poland: Saving from Oblivion - Teaching for the Future," and "The Grodzka Gate Centre." The latter organisation, based in Lublin, is involved in numerous educational and commemorative activities, among them writing letters to Henio Zytomirski - a Jewish boy who perished in the Shoah.
Remembrance
Both state and local government institutions, universities, research institutes and schools are extensively involved in Holocaust commemoration. State and local authorities honour the victims of the Holocaust - with special ceremonies held on January 27th (the anniversary of the liberation of the German death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau), and on April 19th (to commemorate the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). Many towns and cities have erected monuments in remembrance of the annihilation of the Jews that lived in these places before the war. Such monuments or commemorating plates can be found, among other places, in Warsaw (i.a. Umschlagplatz and the Mordechai Anielewicz Bunker), Łódz, Kraków, Kielce, Lublin, Zamosd, Białystok, Góra Kalwaria (Ger), Otwock, Tykocin, Wielkie Oczy, Chmielnik, Płonsk, and in Jedwabne, where a monument to the memory of the Jews murdered by their Polish neighbours in 1941 was placed in 2001.
Research
Historical research on the Holocaust began in Poland immediately after the end of war with the establishment of the Central Jewish Historical Commission in 1944 (afterwards renamed the Jewish Historical Institute). There was a rise in interest in studying the Shoah among academics from 1989 onwards.
In 2003 a Centre for Holocaust Research - the first academic institution of this kind - was created within the structure of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. It was followed five years later by the establishment of the Centre for Holocaust Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
University courses on the Holocaust are offered to undergraduate and graduate students at many other Polish universities, e.g. in Warsaw, Lublin, Wrocław, Poznan, Gdansk, and Katowice. Every year dozens of students present their masters theses and PhD candidates complete their doctoral dissertations dedicated to many different issues concerning the Holocaust, mainly in the field of history, literature, sociology, psychology, and philosophy.
Over a hundred books and several hundred articles in scholarly periodicals are published every year. More and more Polish scholars research the dark pages of Polish history in World War Two as well as the period that followed it. As a result, several public debates have taken place in Poland in the last ten years.
