POLAND: An exhibition remembering the Russian citizens who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp opens on Holocaust Day

Record ID: 702605

  • Title: POLAND: An exhibition remembering the Russian citizens who died in the Auschwitz concentration camp opens on Holocaust Day
  • Date: 27th January 2013
  • Summary: OFFICIALS, INCLUDING U.S. AMBASSADOR TO POLAND STEPHEN MULL (LEFT) WALKING WITH CANDLES DEATH CAMP SURVIVORS VARIOUS OF SURVIVORS LAYING CANDLES AT MONUMENT CANDLE
  • Embargoed: 11th February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVA4H9B4M6PXXV82CXG3AUBEQV4Q
  • Story Text: The opening of an exhibition remembering the Russian inmates of the Auschwitz death camp was one of the events marking the 68th anniversary of the camp's liberation by the Red Army on Sunday (January 27).
    The Russian Culture Minister and Speaker of the Duma (Russia's lower house of parliament) were present at a ceremony in front of barracks number 14, where Russian inmates were kept during World War II.
    This is a second attempt at opening a Russian exhibition in Auschwitz, after the previous one was closed down in 2006 due to differences between Polish and Russian historians. Russia, an ally of Nazi Germany until 1941, had invaded Poland in 1939, an event which is often overlooked in Russian history and remains a point of dispute between the two countries until today.
    The head of Moscow's Central Museum of The Great Patriotic War, Vladimir Zaborovsky said he was pleased that the new exhibition was opened.

    "I would like to congratulate you all on the opening of the exhibition, and to express our gratitude to our colleagues at Auschwitz-Birkenau for their help and co-operation, I would like to present them one of the two exact copies of needles that were primarily used to brand the captured Red Army soldiers (by German captors). This is a unique item, its original (version) is stored in the Military Medical Museum of St. Petersburg. I have a great pleasure in giving this piece of evidence, this object, to my colleague," Zaborovsky said, handing the gift to Auschwitz museum director Piotr Cywinski.
    Survivors of the death camp also took part in a somber ceremony in front of a monument for Holocaust victims in the second part of the camp, Birkenau.
    After reciting prayers, officials and survivors laid wreaths and candles on plaques commemorating victims written in 22 languages.
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