The seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp is an event which brings a number of associations in the mind of a Pole and a historian who - like me - was born fifteen years after the war had ended. Straining my memory, I try to remember how many former inmates I have met in my life. I think I have had closer contacts with a dozen of them, including two women. In past decades they were informally referred to as the "Oświęcim lot", since the former Auschwitz concentration camp was usually called "Oświęcim", the Polish name of the location. The name-giving standard of today, which in our language is becoming a linguistic standard assuming that to name that camp one uses the German name for the town where the Germans set it up in 1940, is absolutely right. It is the word "Oświęcim", however, that since my youth has had a place in my consciousness as a representation of something most gruesome in the world. Indeed, in my private dictionary I just cannot find a phrase which - when heard - would be able to evoke an equally strong sense of dread. "That" word entails some other dreadful associations, too. Take the word "camp": I remember how my stomach churned, when a very long time ago I was leaving for a training camp as a junior sportsman. And then there is an image of "barbed wire"…
With time, everything has become commonplace. After all, I deal with twentieth-century history in my work. For two or three years I would be in Oświęcim on a weekly basis, just next to the former camp. I was a lecturer there. I got to like the town then and learnt to appreciate its locals who showed a lot of initiative. With time, out of necessity I also had to take barbed wire in my hand, which I needed to fix a fence around the house, in whose vast cellars a barbed wire spool still rusts away somewhere. With time everything has become more commonplace. Hold on, not everything. What remains is my allergy to anti-Semitism, racially and ideologically motivated denigration of human dignity and all forms of organised state terror and violence.
But a few years ago a day came when one of the "Oświęcim lot" passed away. He was a teacher and a benefactor of mine, and then - I think - a friend, too. He would very rarely recall his two years in Auschwitz. A brilliant rationalist, a fulfilled man he was, bursting with humour and joy of life, as well as enjoying extensive and cordial contacts in Germany. And that extraordinary man, when his strength was leaving him for good, saw the smoking chimneys of the crematoria again and as a fugitive, that is salvaged inmate, he would hide the camp inmate number on his forearm, "so as not to be recognised ". Auschwitz remained inside him until the end, and Auschwitz is still within us.
Without reading too much into that illumination, subjectively very moving yet momentary and individual after all, I am glad that a broad coalition is being formed in Europe of institutions, organisations and initiatives which want to serve the exploration and dissemination of knowledge about the history of the twentieth century, its many dark aspects, and in particular the unprecedented genocide of the Holocaust, which is remembered across the globe on 27 January, on the anniversary of Auschwitz liberation. An important aspect of the coalition is the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, an organisation bringing together, Poland, Germany, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary, with its permanent Secretariat in Warsaw. The objective of the Network is to initiate and support international dialogue concerning twentieth-century history. We want such dialogue to make use of most recent scientific findings and be completely honest or, more informally, honest to the bone. At the same time we want the discourse to be conducted with respect for the experiences and sensitivities of the partners so that it can lead to the mutual enrichment of the participants, rather than sowing distrust and fear. We expect that by acting in such a way we will with time stop twentieth-century history from being seen as a field for manipulation, exploited to pursue some immediate political goals. For this to happen, a necessary condition is not just knowledge of history, but first and foremost remembering the "Oświęcim lot". We are nothing without them and they are a foundation of our identity.
Jan Rydel
Polish Coordinator for the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity