Russo-Polish Dispute on Auschwitz
Russland-Aktuell reports that the Polish management of the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum, located on the area of the former Nazi-German concentration camp in Poland, refuses to re-open the exposition commemo- rating the camp prisoners who lost their lives there.
The exposition was created in 1961, as a Russo-Polish joint venture, to display and commemorate the circumstances the camp prisoners had to live in and to suffer from. It also commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
The dispute addresses the fact that in the Russian contribution to the exposition camp prisoners originating from cities and towns in Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, regions which prior to 1939 were part of the Polish Republic, are addressed having been citizens of the Soviet Union.
The Polish side now claims that these regions were illegally occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, as a result of the infamous Hitler-Stalin-Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop-Pact), and therefore these victimes of Auschwitz-Birkenau are to be considered having been Polish citizens, not citizens of the Soviet Union.
The Polish management insists in keeping the exposition, or at least the Russian part of it, closed as long as Russia will not “correct” the nationality of the prisoners in question.
Although the Polish government, represented by the Ministry of Education and the Arts, insists in taking a neutral stand in this affair the Russian side is outraged and accuses Poland of abusing the victimes of Auschwitz-Birkenau for nationalistic purposes.
The Russian side suggests that the victimes of Auschwitz-Birkenau are to be seen as representatives of humanity, not of individual nationalities.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was erected in 1940 and operated until 1945. Approximately 1.1 million prisoners lost their lives in the camp. When the Red Army liberated the camp only 7000 survivors were found.
