THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ COUNCIL

The International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was established in 1990 under a ruling by the minister of culture and art. The minister nominated world-renowned authorities on the concentration camps and the Holocaust as members of the Council. The chairman was Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, former Auschwitz prisoner, co-founder of the clandestine Zegota organization set up to aid the Jews in Poland during the Second World War, historian, writer, and, at the time, Polish ambassador in Vienna. The role of the council was advisory and promotional, and the Council aided the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in its various activities.
The Council examined specific issues connected with the functioning of the Museum and evaluated exhibitions, publications, films, guidebooks, and all other modes of presenting the former camp. The Council also discussed preservation tasks and played a role in fund-raising, especially among the European states that appropriated funds for specific projects at the site of the concentration camp.
In January 2000, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland announced the establishment of a new Auschwitz Council, which assumed the responsibilities of the existing body. Under the new arrangement, the Council advises the President of the Council of Ministers in regard to the preservation and functioning not only of the Auschwitz site, but of other Holocaust Memorials as well. Members serve terms of six years. The chairman of the Auschwitz Council is Senator Władysław Bartoszewski, who was chairman of the International Council of the Museum. Premier Jerzy Buzek officially nominated the members of the International Auschwitz Council in the Collonade Hall of the Office of the President of the Council of Ministers on June 7, 2000. During the ceremony, Prime Minister Buzek said : "I believe that working together to prreserve for posterity the tragic heritage of the Nazi policy of the extermination of the Polish people and the Destruction of the Jewish people will serve the cause of reconciliation and mutual understanding, and that the ongoing cooperation among experts, researchers, and people who enjoy public esteem and trust will contribute to overcoming stereotypes and prejudices by bearing shared witness to the truth about those horrible times."

Members of the International Auschwitz Council:

    1. Prof. Władyslaw Bartoszewski - chairman, Poland
    2. Prof. Israel Gutman - vice-chairman, Israel
    3. Stefan Wilkanowicz - vice-chairman, Poland
    4. Kazimierz Albin, Poland
    5. Dr Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Poland
    6. Prof. Michał Czajkowski, Poland
    7. Prof. Wacław Długoborski, Poland
    8. Henryk Flug, Israel
    9. Prof. Józef Garliński, United Kingdom
    10. David Harris, USA
    11. Christoph Heubner
    12. Dr Stanisław Krajewski, Poland
    13. Nathan Leipciger, Canada
    14. Miles Lerman, USA
    15. Dr Richard Prasquier, France
    16. Prof. Bohdan Rymaszewski, Poland
    17. Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska, Poland
    18. Avner Shalev, Israel
    19. Stanisław Stankiewicz, Poland
    20. Kalman Sultanik, USA
    21. Prof. Józef Szajna, Poland
    22. Marian Turski, Poland
    23. Siegfried Vergin, Germany
    24. Prof. Jonathan Webber, United Kingdom
    25. Fred Zeidman, USA

Full text of the Prime Minister's remarks:

Address of the Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek,
at a meeting with the International Auschwitz Council
Warsaw, 7 June 2000

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On the 29th of March, acting upon a motion submitted by Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, I appointed you members of the International Auschwitz Council, the continuation of a council once established by the former Minister of Culture and Art, Izabela Cywińska. I wish to most cordially thank all those who have been members of the council for nearly a decade for their enormous, unselfish effort and dedication, for helping to solve so many problems and for alleviating the tensions and conflicts arising along the way.
My decision to establish a new International Auschwitz Council within the structures of the government of the Republic of Poland, stemmed from a profound conviction of the weight and role it can and should have in the preservation and future development of not only the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site. Those efforts should also extend to the remaining death-camp sites which are under the special protection of a law, drawn up by my government and adopted by parliament in May 1999. I believe joint efforts to preserve for posterity the tragic heritage of the Hitlerite policy to exterminate the Polish nation and to annihilate the Jewish nation will serve to promote reconciliation and mutual understanding. I believe that growing co-operation among experts, scholars, people enjoying high public authority and confidence, will help overcome stereotypes and prejudice through common bearing witness to the truth about those terrible times.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was here, on Polish soil, that the extermination of Polish and European Jews and Romanies was carried out. It was here that horrifying death factories were built, and it is here that each young Jews from all over the world come each year to pay tribute to the ashes of their ancestors. We Poles, sons of a nation condemned to slavery by the Nazis, killed without hesitation for the slightest resistance to the occupiers, while honouring our own martyrs, have an obligation to preserve the memory of a nation condemned to death. The nation whose sons and daughters had lived with us for more than eight centuries. The remembrance of the culture they had built here and the Holocaust which had engulfed them cannot and should not divide us. Any rivalry among victims of Nazi barbarity would be an ironic mockery of history - and a posthumous victory of the Hitlerite butchers. Upon you, the members of the International Auschwitz Council, among others, rests the obligation to see to it that this never occurs. I trust you will be able to cope with all the challenges facing you in your difficult efforts.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
In conclusion, allow me to invoke the words uttered on the 23rd of March this year by my great countryman, Pope John Paul II during his visit to Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Memorial Institute: 'I have come to Yad Vashem to pay tribute to millions of Jews who, stripped of everything, above all of human dignity, were murdered during the Holocaust. More than half a century has passed, but the memories have remained. 'Here, as in Auschwitz and many other places in Europe, we are overwhelmed by the heart-rending echo of so many wailing people. Men, women and children are crying out to us from the depths of the horrors they had experienced. How could we not have noticed that cry? Nobody is permitted to forget, overlook or diminish the scope of what had occurred.
'We wish to remember, but for a specific reason. So as to have the certainty that evil will never triumph the way it did in the case of millions of victims of Nazism.'
We are all addressees of that papal message, but you, the members of the International Auschwitz Council, are its addressees in a particular way. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you every success in dealing with the tasks you face.

History of KL Auschwitz | Museum | Visiting the Memorial | How You Can Help | Publications | Latest News | Links | Search | About the site | E-Mail