Bulletin January - June 1999

Contents:

• VISITORS
• COLLECTIONS
• CONSERVATION
• RESEARCH ACTIVITIES
• CONSULTATIONS
• EXHIBITIONS
• EDUCATION
• CHRONICLE
• MUSEUM'S STATEMENT

In the first half of 1999 the Museum received more than 201,000 visitors of whom approximately 105,000 came from Poland and 96,000 from abroad. Most of them - 136,000 - were young people, of whom approximately 90,000 were from Poland and 46,000 from other countries. The visitors were shown around by 155 guides.
Prominent politicians who visited the Museum included:
* Jean Chrétien - Prime Minister of Canada;
* Eduard Frei - President of Chile;
* John Engler - Governor of the State of Michigan;
* Secretaries of State of the Swedish Government;
* Deputies to the Parliament of Rheinland and Westfallen;
* a group of European parliamentarians.

Between January and March a periodical training course for the Museum guides was organised.
The subjects discussed by the invited lecturers in their lectures included: "Christianity and Judaism", "Totalitarianism, fascism, racism," "The role of propaganda during the time of national socialism," "Executions of KL Auschwitz inmates at the gravel pit" or "The Montelupi prisoners at KL Auschwitz".
The guides were given a tour plan of the exhibition and the area of the Memorial Place, and its authors ran practical methodical training based on the plan.

In the first half of 1999, thirty-seven film and television crews arrived at the Museum, including a Japanese television crew making a film about Eichmann. The main character therein is Peter Malkin (born in 1928 in Zolkiewka). His elder sister and other more distant relatives had been murdered at Auschwitz. After the war Malkin joined the Mossad. Auschwitz and all that it symbolises was his main motive for chasing Eichmann. He was involved in arresting and taking him from Argentina to Israel.
Sky News dealt with the story of two brothers and their cousin, who were Greek Jews, deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and included in the Sonderkommando. All three of them came to the place where several dozen years before, they had been forced to burn the corpses of the people who had been murdered and who had died in the camp.
Some crews were taking shots of Auschwitz which are to be used in information materials about Poland (mainly for tourist purposes).

In the first half of 1999, the Archives enriched its collections with more valuable items, such as:
* 23 original documents, including a purchased collection of 9 camp letters of the former inmate of KL Auschwitz, Antoni Szynkarek (camp number 111008);
* 20 copies of original camp documents (camp letters, death certificates, notices of inmates' deaths, clandestine messages);
* 5 memoirs of former inmates;
* a copy of documents concerning the growing of kok-saghyz in Rajsko;
* 32 questionnaires concerning the fates of inmates from Poland and abroad;
* 16 accounts of former inmates about their camp experience.
The inmates' testimonies were collected by the Museum staff. The work was co-ordinated by the department responsible for contacts with former inmates, and the academic and research department also video recorded 4 accounts, the most remarkable of which is certainly the several-hours' long account by Henryk Mandelbaum, the only member of the Sonderkommando living in Poland, concerning the mass-killings in the gas chambers.

Added to the film collections of the Archives were another 15 films, including 4 documentaries on the artistic creations of Marian Kolodziej (camp number 432), the Italian-Hungarian-Polish feature film "Siódmy pokój" (the seventh room) on the life of Edyta Stein, and the French documentary which received many awards "In the name of the Führer" about the fate of children in German concentration camps (the film was donated to the film collection by its author Lydia Chagoll).
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
The collections were enlarged by 47 exhibits of which 15 are paintings and 32 are historic exhibits classified as camp equipment.
The most valuable acquisitions include:
* metal stands and camp bowls from the hospital section BIIf of the former camp in Brzezinka;
* 23 pharmaceuticals from the time of occupation - including medicines against typhoid fever, diahorrea and dysyntery, found in Rajsko where one of Auschwitz sub-camps had been located;
* a dozen or so water-colours illustrating camp scenes, made by the inmate Waldemar Nowakowski at KL Auschwitz during the years 1940-1944.

In the first half of the year, conservation and repair work was performed on the area of the former KL Auschwitz and KL Birkenau camps, funded mainly from foreign grants.
The grant from the German Länder was used for:
* the conservation repair of 8 guard towers at Auschwitz I (the cost of the project was PLN 720,000).
Concerning the repair and adaptation in the "Sauna" (bath) building in Birkenau, the work undertaken for exhibition purposes included:
* electrical lighting and heat supply systems;
* a system to supply water to the building and to the site of the container toilet.
The cost of the above work totalled approximately PLN 500,000.
Work is continuing in this building and is connected with:
* the conservation repair of the brick facade of the building;
* the installation of the forced-air system of heating with the use of heat pumps;
* upgrading the power supply system (for a total of approx. PLN 470,000).
The grant from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was used for performing conservation repairs to the roof structure and covering of Block no. 1 within the area of the former Auschwitz I (project cost approx. PLN 180,000).
The grant from the Belgian government is being utilised for conservation repair of the Blockführerstube barrack next to the gateway Arbeit macht frei at Auschwitz I. The total cost of the conservation is estimated at approximately PLN 500,000.

In connection with the unprecedented announcement by a Polish historian and academic teacher of the "Auschwitz lie" in Polityka weekly (May 1999), the article Inzynieria zaglady (the engineering of mass-killing) by Dr. F. Piper was published, concerning the documentation of mass-killing and the denial of crimes perpetrated at KL Auschwitz - see also 'Chronicle', p.8).
In January 1999, in the social and cultural monthly ?lask an article Niemcy po Auschwitz (The Germans after Auschwitz) by L. Filip was published, discussing German issues in the context of Auschwitz.

Museum staff provided on-going consultations to representatives of related institutions, historians, journalists, film crews and other persons interested in the history of KL Auschwitz. Consultation was given, among others, on subjects such as:
* the plundering of the property of Gypsies at KL Auschwitz (for a representative of German Roms);
* the activity of the SS doctor Josef Mengele (for a documentary film);
* pharmacological experiments and the links of the Bayer company with Auschwitz (for an American television station);
* experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele;
* the fate of Jewish children at KL Auschwitz and the burning alive of children in the burning pits (for BBC London);
* the choice of artistic exhibits for the exhibition on the Holocaust (for the Imperial War Museum in London);
* materials for the seminar under the "Erziehung nach Auschwitz" project (for the Hochschule für Sozialwesen of Esslingen);
* music themes kept by the Museum (for the Institut für Musikwissenschaft of Weimar).
The Museum hosted Nicolas Gauvin from the University of Montreal for two months. The subject of his doctoral dissertation was a comparative study of the manner of presenting the history of the Holocaust in the three largest institutions dealing with these issues: Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim. He acquainted himself with the work of all Museum thematic departments and with part of the archive materials concerning the exhibitions on display at the Museum.
*
Staff of the department for contacts with former inmates continued their work on developing the thematic index from 39 volumes of trial files. Entries of the thematic index from 26 volumes of accounts of former inmates and members of the camp resistance movement have been entered into the computer database. Research was undertaken in eight cases for various persons and institutions concerning events from the history of the camp and the surrounding area, the resistance movement and the fate of inmates deported to KL Auschwitz.

The Information Office providing information on former inmates supplied approximately 1,700 pieces of written information, of which 800 were requested by domestic sources (of which several dozen statements were issued to forced labourers employed in firms co-operating with the SS Central Construction Office). The statements were issued mainly to former inmates and their families for purposes relating to the granting of compensation and inheritance matters. Information was also provided to the Polish Red Cross and lawyers' offices in charge of the inheritance cases of Polish and foreign citizens.
More than 800 written statements were dispatched abroad. Information was sought by parties from Germany and USA (124 each), Ukraine (71), Switzerland (61), Denmark (39), Israel (38), and Canada, Czech Republic, Russia, England, Australia, Belgium, Holland, Brasil and the Republic of South Africa.
Oral information was also provided to 280 persons from Poland and 230 from abroad.

Two new books were published:
* 'Wolanie o pamiec' (A cry for remembrance) by Halina Birenbaum;
* 'The Auschwitz Poems' - a collection of poems selected and prepared by Adam Zych.
Halina Birenbaum chronicled the fates of twenty persons, mainly Polish Jews, who, after many years of silence, revisited their experience from the times of subjugation. Recalled in the accounts of the writer's acquaintances and friends are the nightmares of the November execution of Jews in the camp at Majdanek, the trampling underfoot of a child on the ramp in Birkenau by the running crowd, an escape to avoid the sending to Treblinka, the experience from the camps of Birkenau, Stutthof and Belzec or, on the other hand, the rescue by a Polish family in Warsaw. The fates of individual persons, collected by Halina Birenbaum, enrich academic studies and historical investigations which are unable to reflect the pain, fear, hope, the power of struggle and the desire to survive. In the author's foreword we read: When I keep telling these histories in all the languages I know to some extent or other [...] it seems to me that I return to the dead an hour of their lives, that they will continue to exist in the hearts and minds of the listeners and readers. This awareness is the source of my strength. And these images are imprinted in me and the stories of my friends. The responsibility to give an account. I do not believe that it is a wasted effort [...].
The English version of the collection of poems Auschwitz was on My Soil includes some of the poems contained in the two-volume Polish edition. The book comprises almost 300 poems by 160 authors of many nationalities - Polish, German, Jewish, Rom, Austrian, Belarussian, Bulgarian, Italian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, as well as American, Australian, English and Canadian poets. Next to less well known writers, those writing about Auschwitz include famous authors such as Paul Celan, Primo Levi, Tadeusz Borowski, Wladyslaw Broniewski, Jan Maria Gisges, Stanislaw Wygodzki and Wislawa Szymborska.
The poems written in the camp usually record the camp reality, and reflect the experience and feelings of the inmates' community. The post-war poems both accuse and commemorate.

Also the jubilee tenth issue of the PRO MEMORIA bulletin was published. Five years ago the first issue was published, upon the initiative of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Place and Museum and the Foundation for the Commemoration of the Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp. To-date readers have been offered ten issues in Polish, five in English and two in German. The most recent issue is devoted to the fate of the Sintis and Roms both in the years before the outbreak of the war and at KL Auschwitz. The 10th issue contains inter alia articles by Romani Rose entitled Centrum dokumentacji i kultury niemieckich Sinti i Romów (Documentary and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma); Cyganie w pracach plastycznych i wiezniow KL Auschwitz (Gypsies in the visual art of inmates of KL Auschwitz) by I. Szyma?ska, and the substantive and graphical concept of the permanent exhibition on the genocide of the Sinti and Roma, by S. Peritore, F. Reuter (the substantive concept) and Wieland Schmid (responsible for the visual artistic and architectural implementation). The exhibition will be on display in Block no. 13 at the former KL Auschwitz, and its opening is planned for the year 2000.

Between 25 January and 15 February in the Jewish Cultural Centre in Kraków, a post-competition exhibition of designs for the interior of the Sauna (bath) building was on display. This largest building at Birkenau will house an exhibition presenting pre-war family photographs of Jews deported and mostly murdered at Auschwitz. The functions and history of the building will also be explained.

Since March in the hall of the Visitor Service Centre there has been a temporary exhibition of aerial photographs, from the private collection of Wojciech Gorgolewski who has been co-operating with the Museum for several years. The photographs, taken in the 1990s., show the areas of the former camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and of the town.

Work was completed on supplementing the exhibition "Poles at KL Auschwitz" which is the last part of the permanent national exhibition in Block 15 on "The Martyrdom and Struggle of the Polish Nation in 1939-1945."

>From April to October 1999, a temporary exhibition on "KL Auschwitz in the visual art of former inmates" can be seen in Block 12. The exhibition shows the camp reality as seen by artists - former inmates of KL Auschwitz.

The visual art design concerning the commemoration and substantive description of the area of the former Auschwitz I camp was accepted for implementation.

In February 1999 the last session and the formal ending of the year-long post-graduate study for teachers of humanities on Totalitarianism - Nazism - Holocaust took place. The diplomas for completing the study were conferred upon the students by the authorities of the Pedagogical University in Kraków and Directors of the Museum. The study comprised the following subjects:

• Totalitarianism, Fascism, Racism;
• The Nazi movement and Nazi rule in Germany and occupied Europe;
• The Nazi death camps with particular emphasis on KL Auschwitz;
• The history and culture of the Jewish nation until 1939;
• The oppression and mass-killing of the Jewish nation under Nazi rule;
• Poles and Jews during World War II and in the post-war period;
• The Holocaust and death camps in literature and the arts;
• The Holocaust and death camps in feature and documentary films;
• After Auschwitz and the Holocaust: overcoming the past and prejudices in the social awareness and the dialogue of denominations;
• The Post-war fate of the Jewish nation;
• Totalitarianism, Nazism and the Holocaust in school education.

The study attracted immense interest among teachers who underlined that it will fill the gap in their current preparation to tackle these subjects during school lessons.
The study was not only the first educational project of the Museum undertaken on such a large scale but also the first Polish study devoted to these subjects. The lectures, classes and seminars were run by academics from Polish universities. The results of the study are inter alia diploma papers containing proposed lesson plans for lower and upper secondary schools, and proposed interdisciplinary educational curricula.
The lectures were given by the Museum research staff and lecturers from Polish universities co-operating with the Museum.

Seminars for Polish teachers

Periodical meetings with teachers of the humanities, educators and teachers of religion from primary and secondary schools, are part of a larger educational programme developed three years ago by the Educational Centre, designed to better prepare the school youth for visits to the Museum.
The following seminars were organised in the first half of the year:

• Auschwitz - its history and symbolism (for history teachers from southern Poland);
• The fate of Poles and Jews at KL Auschwitz and the preparation of young people for a visit to the Memorial Place (for teachers of Polish - part I);
• Individual fates and attitudes of inmates of KL Auschwitz (for teachers of Polish - part II).

Seminars and study tours
for foreign groups
In May, in co-operation with the English Department of the Jagiellonian University, a one-day seminar was held for students from the USA, participants in the study tour of Central and East Europe.

In June, group of a dozen or so persons from Yad Vashem came to the Museum for a two-week seminar. The programme prepared by the Museum staff comprised the following subjects:

• Poles at KL Auschwitz;
• A meeting with the former inmate of Auschwitz, Jerzy Bielecki, who escaped from the camp in summer 1944 together with a Polish Jew Cyla Cybulska;
• The German and Soviet subjugation of Poland from 1939;
• Covering the route of the evacuation of KL Auschwitz inmates and visits to cemeteries and places commemorating the victims of the "Death March", accompanied by a guide's a lecture;
• Jews at KL Auschwitz;
• Jews in the subjugated countries of Europe;
• Jews in Poland after World War II;
• The social and political situation in Poland after 1989;
• The history and role of Block 11;
• The meaning of the cross in Christianity;
• The sociology of Polish anti-semitism;
• The conflict of Polish and Jewish remembrances;
• The multi-dimensionality of the Auschwitz symbolism;
• KL Auschwitz in the social awareness of contemporary Poles;
• The year 1968 in Poland - a political history;
• Pedagogy after Auschwitz;
• Revealing the SS crimes at KL Auschwitz and the position of the Allies in this matter.

The lectures were given by the Museum research staff and lecturers from Polish universities co-operating with the Museum.
Furthermore, the seminar participants visited the castle of the Pszczyna princes in Pszczyna, the castle in Nidzica, and took a rafting trip on the Dunajec river. They were also given the opportunity of having Friday Sabbath meals and going to a synagogue.

Lectures, museum lessons,
film presentations
Museum lessons were organised for primary and secondary school youth from Poland and Germany, combined with visits to selected fragments of the exhibition, meetings with former inmates and presentations of documentaries.

Sociological studies
Dr. Marek Kucia of the Jagiellonian University, with the assistance of staff of the Educational Centre, continued sociological studies of both youth groups visiting the former camp, their guardians, teachers and the Museum guides.
The studies aim at:
- finding the answer to the question concerning the amount and quality of knowledge acquired in the course of a visit to the Museum by young groups, and whether a modification of the tour route for such groups is needed;
- canvassing the opinions of guides about their work and attitude to the modification of the route planned by the Museum;
- finding out about the impact of "external" factors on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the "internal" factor - Museum-organised training courses for the guides, on their work and directing the Museum in its guide training activity.

January

On 27th January 1999, the grant from the Swedish Government (1million kronas) was formally donated for the development of new software, to replace the Kleio package currently used to support the work of the Archives. A new tool for entering data as well as tools for viewing and analysing data will be developed under the project. The contract for developing the software was signed on 1st February 1999. The work will be co-ordinated by the Museum's Computer Department. The project will also include the replacement of one of the servers in the computer network.

In the Jewish Cultural Centre in Kraków a post-competition exhibition of designs "Interior Design of the Post-camp Building of the Sauna (bath) in Birkenau" was on display. It is organised by the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Jewish Cultural Centre.

The anniversary of the liberation of the camp and the related ceremonies.

In the Warsaw Bookseller's Club there is a promotion of the Museum-published book by Józef Musiol "Czlowiek i zbrodnia" (Man and crime). As a judge of the Regional Court in Katowice he interviewed victims of medical experiments in Nazi death camps. Observations from those testimonies were the inspiration for his literary and journalistic work.

February

A seminar was held, organised by the Office of the Prime Minister and devoted to the organisation of this year's March of the Living. It was attended by representatives of the Jewish party (organisers and educators) and Polish participants (namely, representatives of the Prime Minister, Polish-Jewish friendship organisations, local authorities of the town of Oswiecim and the municipality of Brzezinka and the Museum).
Both parties agreed that what mattered most was the fact that a dialogue has been initiated, taking into account the local community, and expressed their regret that such meetings had not been held before (this is to be the eleventh march since 1988). They also agreed that attempts should be made - through educational activities - to eliminate both anti-polonism and anti-semitism.

More than a hundred soldiers from the Armoured Brigade of the Bundeswehr visited the Museum. The soldiers accompanied the German defence minister Rudolf Scharping who, together with the Polish defence minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz, came to pay tribute to those murdered at KL Auschwitz. Scharping declared in Oswiecim that the German government admitted all periods of German history, including the bad ones. Then he stated as a representative of Germany that 'I placed a wreath by the Wall of Death, in the main camp, and by the memorial in Brzezinka. I whish thus to give a clear message: national socialism is our common horrible legacy. No one can write off the past.

March

The Lauder Foundation (USA) will assign USD 2.8 million to the adaptation of the so-called Aufnahmegebäude (which now houses inter alia the visitor reception centre) for conservation and storage space. The money has been paid to its account by the governments of France, Norway, Switzerland, Greece and Russia.

April

An academic from the city of Opole (Dariusz Ratajczak) in his book, which he published at his own expense (approximately 250 copies) and which was distributed in the Opole University, concluded that the gas chambers where people were murdered are a figment of the followers of the "religion of the Holocaust" and that Zyklon B was used exclusively to protect Jews against lice causing lethal danger. On 30th March the Museum sent a letter of protest to the authorities of the University (reprinted in full by Gazeta Wyborcza daily on 8th April). As a result, the University authorities suspended the lecturer (more on this - see also p. 9).

An international conference was held on the problems of the conservation of concrete poles of the KL Auschwitz camp fence. It was assumed that each pole is an individual object and that such an individual conservation approach should be applied to particular poles, which total almost 3,500. Discussed were proposals presented by professors from the universities of Toru?, Warsaw, Kraków, and Aachen in Germany. It was decided to commence the pole conservation project to be funded by the German Länder. The total cost of the project is estimated at almost PLN 8 million.

11th March of the Living. It is attended by approximately 1,600 participants, including several hundred Poles. It is the first march with such a large number of young non-Jewish participants.

A delegation of several Museum staff preparing a new exhibition and a new programme for the Museum's operation went on a study tour to the United States, which included visits to museums, academic and cultural centres on the west and east coasts, as well as meetings with persons responsible for exhibitions and developing educational policy at museums and memorials. The costs of travel and accommodation in the USA were covered by the American government agency, the United States Information Agency.

May

The President of the Republic of Poland signed the act on the protection of former Nazi death camps which also regulates the issue of the protection zone around the Museum.

The Museum was visited by the former inmate of KL Auschwitz, Dinah Gottliebova, accompanied by her daughter, her lawyer and the NBC television crew (coverage of her visit would be shown on, one of the most popular morning programmes on American television). She claims the return of water-colours of Gypsies which she painted at the camp upon the order of Mengele. The position of the Museum remains unchanged - these works (acquired in the 1970s as anonymous, in good faith and legally) as part of the camp heritage and documentation of the criminal activity of Dr. Mengele, shall remain at the Museum while the author shall retain her economic rights (copyright, royalties). The Museum's position was supported inter alia by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Museum Council and the TOnO (the Society for the Care of Auschwitz) (see p. 10).

Jonathan Weber, a member of the International Council of the Museum was awarded the gold Cross of Merit, and his wife the silver Cross of Merit. The Crosses are conferred by the Polish Embassy in London in recognition of their contribution to the development of Polish-Jewish relations.

"Polish concentration camps". In November 1998, "The Australian" published an article Blessed be their names, a fragment of which reads: The beatification in 1971 of Maximilian Kolbe, who died in a Polish concentration camp in 1941, attracted controversy because of allegations that he had been guilty of anti-semitism as a journalist before the war.... After a series of protests from the Main Council of Polish Organisations in Australia, the Australian Press Board (on 14th May 1999) issued a ruling in which it sustained the claims of the Main Council that the phrasing was misleading for Australian readers and offended the Poles, thus infringing the principles of journalism applied in Australia. Last year "Time" magazine published a similar phrase but following protests from the Polish community, it admitted making a mistake and published a rectification and apology. A similar situation took place in Canada in 1988 where the Congress of the Canadian Polish Community filed a complaint against "The Ottawa Citizen" daily which had used an identical phrase (and won the case). "The Australian", making use of the rules applicable in such cases in Australia, and not being obliged to do so, did not publish a rectification.

June

The indictment was filed in the District Court of Opole against the lecturer of the University of Opole, D. Ratajczak. According to the prosecutor, by the publication "Niebezpieczne tematy" (Dangerous subjects) he violated art. 55 of the act on the National Memorial Institute.

A group of a dozen or so staff from Yad Vashem visited the Museum for a two week seminar. This is another visit within the framework of the exchange between these two institutions, which has continued now for several years (see p. 7).

Ceremonies commemorating an anniversary of bringing the first transport of Polish political prisoners to KL Auschwitz. These were overshadowed by the Pope's visit. The ceremonies were concluded with the service in the church at Harmeze and a visit to the exhibition of Marian Kolodziej, a former Auschwitz inmate, in the church's vaults.

The plan of placing the Museum on the Internet is reaching its final stage. The Computer Department which is in charge of the work assures that the connection will be established by September 1999. Work is continuing in parallel on creating the Museum's WWW web site.

[The Museum's statement sent to the press on 15th May 1999, concerning seven water-colours by Dinah Gottliebova, in the possession of the Museum, and made by her in 1944 at KL Birkenau]

In 1943, in a transport of Jews deported by the Germans from the ghetto in Theresienstadt to KL Birkenau, there was the twenty-year-old Dinah Gottliebova, a Czech Jew born in Brno. Together with her mother, she was placed in the so-called Theresienstadt family camp (one of the camp sections at Birkenau). Before the war she had studied graphics and sculpture in Brno and, as it proved later, her drawing skills most probably saved her life. In the camp she initially painted numbers on the barracks and then, upon the order from SS-men, she made their portraits from the photographs which they had delivered. After her painting skills had been discovered (she painted inter alia on the walls of the children's barrack some scenes from Disney tales), Dr. Mengele - then the chief doctor of the so-called "Gypsy family camp" - ordered her to paint water-colours. They showed Gypsies from different countries of Europe called in the Nazi terminology "mischlinge" (half-breeds). Those portraits were to help Mengele in his "research work" which he did in the Auschwitz death camp. Until summer 1944 she made a total of about ten such portraits. Dinah Gottliebova and her mother survived the elimination of the Theresienstadt camp. She was moved to Neustadt Gleve where she painted registration numbers on German planes and where she was liberated.

It was after almost thirty years after the end of the war that she learnt that some of her water-colours had not been destroyed. As in many similar situations, they had survived by chance. In January 1945, three days after the liberation of KL Auschwitz, one of the residents of the town of Oswiecim, a teenager boy, came to the camp to take an orphan girl, a Jew from the Hungarian transports, to be adopted by his parents. One of the saved inmates, moved by the boy's conduct, gave him, as a token of thanks, a roll of paintings comprising seven water-colours and signed "Dinah 1944."
The family loved and cared for the girl. Ewa completed secondary school, then graduated from the Jagiellonian University and started to work as a dentist.
In 1963, Ewa sold six water-colours to the Museum. The seventh painting was acquired in 1977. The report of the Commission for the Purchase of Museum Exhibits made in 1963, states inter alia that: "Members of the Commission found it purposeful to purchase all the paintings for the Museum collections, since portraits of Gypsies link closely with the camp history (the Gypsy camp) /.../ It was decided that the Gypsy paintings had probably been made in the death camp at the time of its existence, most probably by an inmate...." Six years later, going through the book edited by Otto Kraus and Erich Kulka "Tovarna na Smrt", the manager of the then Department of Collections and the Storehouse of Collections of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, noticed an illustration therein. It was signed in the same way as the water-colours in the possession of the Museum. It was thus possible to establish the full name and surname of the author: Dinah Gottliebova. At that time she already lived in the United States.
As soon as the Museum found out Ms. Gottliebova's place of residence, it contacted and informed her about the existence of her works created in the camp. In January 1973, being in Europe, Ms. Gottliebova came to Poland and gave an account in the Museum of her stay at KL Birkenau and of her making of the portraits of Gypsies. In conclusion she said: "I am happy to have survived the camp, I am happy to be alive. I would be grateful if the photographs of the Gypsy portraits were made available to me, the originals of which are in the possession of the Museum and which I painted in the camp." It was the first and only contact Ms. Gottliebova had with the Museum until the second half of the 1990s. In December 1973, the Museum sent to the author for authorisation, her account retrieved from a recording and - as she had wished - two sets of photographs of Gypsy portraits. Since the letter remained unanswered and the mail was not returned either, the Museum in the following years tried to contact the author by sending successive letters. They too, remained unanswered and were not returned by the post. The most recent of these letters was sent in 1996, with the same result. The Museum concluded therefore that Ms. Gottliebova, due to bitter camp recollections, did not want to be contacted and to recall her tragic youth.
The reality was different though. For some time now Ms. Gottliebova has been claiming the return of the works now in the Museum's possession, which she had made in the camp. Under Polish law the lawful owner of the seven portraits of Gypsies is the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, while the economic rights remain with Ms. Gottliebova. Being the owner but not holding the economic rights, the Museum only may use the works within the limits of the permitted public use of protected creations.

This matter cannot be regarded obviously only in legal terms. The Museum fully understands the emotional attitude of Ms. Gottliebova to the works she had once created, in conditions which certainly did not remain without an impact on her life, but cherishes a hope that she understands the intentions of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. From the moment of its establishment, the Museum has, with a lot of difficulty, been gathering and securing all camp remains, trying to make sure that they survive and testify to the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis in the place with which they are inseparably connected. Both the death certificates, inmates' files, etc., produced in great quantities by the scrupulous Nazi camp bureaucracy, and the works of art created in the camp, made by inmates upon orders from the SS or illegally, are unique documents and evidence which speak most powerfully from the place where they were produced. A similar opinion is also expressed by a considerable number of former inmates and some Jewish circles.