Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979. Jonathan Huener
of other victim groups. It would be convenient to claim aggressive anti-Semitism as the main author of this narrative, or to dismiss it as the product of communist machinations at the state level. Anti-Semitism was a tragic and obvious problem in postwar Poland, and a new communist regime was consolidating its power in the years 1945–47. But neither of these influences was decisive on its own. One also has to allow for the possibility that the stewards of Auschwitz memory in these early years were drawing upon broader, non-ethnic, and assimilationist notions of “Pole” and “victim”—notions that eschewed Nazi racial categorizations even as they inappropriately blurred the historical distinctions so important to the process of accurate memorialization. In short, the Polish-national martyrological narrative was more complex than is apparent at first glance, and designating the Auschwitz site and museum as its principal illustration was a natural stage in the process of constructing a viable framework of memory in the postwar era.
2
From Liberation to Memorialization
The Transformation of the Auschwitz Site, 1945–1947
TO MANY POLES in 1945, the need to preserve the Auschwitz site as a memorial to those who had suffered and perished there was obvious. The topography and structures of the Auschwitz complex were well suited to the Polish-national martyrological narrative emerging in the early postwar years. Representing the apex of German racism, it was a center of Polish suffering and heroic Polish resistance. As the site of the largest mass crime in history, it could provide both documentary commemoration in the form of a museum, and artistic commemoration in the form of monuments and memorials. Moreover, the site’s tangibility, artifacts, and open spaces made it an appropriate location for the institutionalization of memorial symbols and rituals.
The first initiatives for creating a memorial site at Auschwitz arose among prisoners in the camp while it was still in operation. As Kazimierz Smoleń, a former prisoner and subsequent director of the State Museum recalls:
We did not know if we would survive, but one did speak of a memorial site. . . . some kind of institution, a monument, or something of that sort. . . . These were not, of course, open meetings or anything like that. One simply could not speak openly of such things or discuss such things. . . . we only knew that it would be impossible for mankind to forget the crimes that were committed in Auschwitz. Certainly the idea of somehow creating a sacrum out of this place existed already in the camp. One just did not know what form it would take.1
Prisoners could not be certain of their fate while still behind the wires of the camp, but after the liberation, they were, not surprisingly, at the forefront of the effort to establish a “sacred space” at Auschwitz.
Such an initiative was not a simple matter. On the one hand, the testimonies and memoirs of former prisoners, press accounts, and the sheer number of visitors reveal a public preoccupation with Auschwitz and tremendous support for transforming the site into a memorial and museum. On the other hand, conditions at Auschwitz were chaotic in the first months after the war: state institutions and organizations competed for control and use of the grounds, the structures of the camp were steadily falling into ruin, and there was a lack of consensus over the topographic and spatial definitions of the memorial site. The transformation of the site into memorial and museum was therefore a difficult process, lasting more than two years. This chapter describes that process, accounting for the challenges facing those responsible for the preservation of Auschwitz and the public documentation of its history. The result of their efforts—the State Museum dedicated in June 1947—was provisional and open to revision in the future; yet its exhibitions and uses of commemorative space at Auschwitz illustrated the martyrological narrative employed in these early postwar years and set the tone for subsequent uses of the site in the decades to follow.
The Liberated Site
Conditions at Auschwitz in the first weeks and months after the liberation were hardly conducive to transforming the site into a memorial and museum. The sick and dying required medical attention, bodies of the dead had to be buried or cremated, and surviving prisoners needed food and clothing. Assuming the dual role of liberator and occupier, the Red Army was initially responsible for supervising these activities and also helped to protect the site from looters and to maintain order—certainly a difficult task given the expanse of the terrain, which covered more than 450 acres. Already on 1 May 1945 a decision of Poland’s provisional government had placed “those parts of the concentration camp in Oświęcim that were connected to the immediate destruction of millions of people” (practically speaking, this meant the grounds of Auschwitz I and Birkenau) under the administration of the Ministry of Culture and Art, which from that point on had responsibility for protecting the site and creating a concept for a future museum.2 This decision, however, did not prevent further desecration (or, to use the common Polish term, profanacja) of the grounds; after the Soviet Army vacated the Birkenau site, a group of former prisoners found it necessary to request that the grounds receive the protection of the Ministry of National Defense.3
In the first months after the liberation, Auschwitz also functioned as a prisoner-of-war camp and internment center for so-called Volksdeutsche.4 Although few details are known about the operation of these Soviet and, later, Polish camps, recent research indicates that from March or April 1945 until autumn of that year prisoners were interned at Auschwitz I, and until spring 1946 on the grounds of Birkenau.5 Several accounts discuss the living and working conditions of the Germans in these camps. One witness, a nurse with the Polish Red Cross, described how in May 1945 several thousand German POWs were brought to the camp and housed in Auschwitz I,6 while a brief diary of a German prisoner chronicles the grim conditions in the POW camp from his arrival in June 1945 until shortly before his death from illness and malnutrition less than a month later.7 The POWs and Volksdeutsche worked in various capacities: exhuming corpses, clearing the grounds, dismantling equipment in the factories of the complex (including the Buna-Werke at Monowitz), and dismantling wooden barracks for shipment from Birkenau.8 In addition, a number of prisoners were occupied with structural repairs to buildings, and even helped with the construction of some of the museum’s early exhibitions.9
Ironically, the presence of Germans at Auschwitz aided efforts to secure and preserve the site. Not only were they an inexpensive source of labor, but the POWs and Volksdeutsche also required military supervision, which in turn reduced the threat of grave robbers and plunderers. The internment of Germans on the grounds of Auschwitz, a practical measure undertaken with perhaps a touch of vengeful justice, illustrated the complexities of transforming the site from camp to memorial. Even if the provisional government had, in early May 1945, set aside the grounds for preservation, the presence of Soviet and Polish military authorities made clear that the site was, at least for the time being, to fulfill a variety of functions.
The first concrete legislative initiative for the protection and memorialization of Auschwitz came from a former Birkenau prisoner and delegate to the National Homeland Council, Alfred Fiderkiewicz, on 31 December 1945. Fiderkiewicz’s recommendation called for the establishment in Oświęcim and Brzezinka of a site commemorating Polish and international martyrdom. A government commission for culture and art approved the recommendation unanimously on 1 February 194610 and named Tadeusz Wąsowicz, a former prisoner, director of the site.11 Several weeks later, the provisional government’s Council of Ministers provided a rough and ambitious blueprint for the future of the site: the Ministry of Culture would organize a museum, with Blocks 10 and 11 of the Stammlager preserved as “mausolea.” In addition, one block would serve as a hostel for visitors, one block would be set aside for the research of German crimes, and one block was to house a so-called “Peoples’ University” for postsecondary vocational education. Furthermore, these provisional plans set aside twenty blocks in Birkenau for exhibits dedicated to various nationalities and to the history of other camps. Finally, the blueprint called for the erection of a monument near the Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria as a symbol of international martyrdom.12 It is significant that in these early plans so much attention and space appeared to be devoted to the “international” character of the future museum and memorial. In the months and years ahead, however, practical concerns, lack of funds,