POLAND: Auschwitz exhibition kept closed due to dispute over nationality of victims

A row over the nationality of 1 million Jews who died in the Nazi Holocaust has kept an exhibition in building 14, at the Auschwitz concentration camp closed since 2005. Russian historians say almost half the 6 million Jews who perished during World War Two at the hands of Nazi Germany were citizens of the Soviet Union. But the Auschwitz museum disputes this, saying almost 1 million of these Jews were citizens of Poland, Romania and the Baltics. It says they were only in the Soviet Union as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement, a deal in 1939 between Hitler and Stalin to carve up central Europe. The Head of the Auschwitz Museum, Piotr Cywinski and the International Auschwitz Council, a body of historians, camp survivors and Israeli officials which supervises the museum, argued they could not reopen the exhibition because it distorted the ethnic origin of some of the war's victims by calling them Russians. "There was only one discrepancy (in the exhibition) and was connected to the installation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement in September 1939," said museum official, Jarek Mensfelt. "Parts of Poland, the Baltic states and Romania were made part of the Soviet Union. One of the maps to be on display showed these areas as parts of the Soviet Union and people living there as the citizens of the Soviet Union. This resulted in inconsistencies and controversy. The main concern was the murdered Jewish population from the eastern parts of Poland who were treated as the citizens of the Soviet Union. This change of citizenship has never been officially recognized. The museum's proposal was to introduce an explanation of the map and its geo-political context back then, nothing more," he added. The museum says the Russian Ambassador to Poland Vladimir Grinin appeared willing to seek a review of the Russian aspect to the exhibition in the former death camp. He also indicated that proposals had been sent to Moscow and are being currently being considered. In the meantime Russian officials have accused Poland of blocking the reopening of the exhibition, commemorating Russian victims of the Holocaust, for political reasons. While one an Auschwitz survivor, former Polish foreign minister, Professor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, says the Russian exhibition was reverting to Soviet propaganda from before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. He has been reported by Polish Newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, as saying there is no place in the exhibition for historic lies akin to those from the Stalinist era.

ITN Source | May 1, 2007

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