It turns out once again that according to those on the left, although the Auschwitz German death camp lies on Polish soil, Poland’s authorities should not even concern themselves with that terrible place. Well, perhaps the only thing they should do is accept Polish alleged co-responsibility for the German factories of death.
Attacks against former Prime Minister Beata Szydło, who was chosen by Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński to join the Auschwitz Museum Council (a body meant to oversee the fulfillment of the museum’s goals), are an example of the left’s strategy when it comes to shaping the memory of the Second World War. They say that Poland is meant to be silent when it comes to Auschwitz and at very most, simply pay for the upkeep of this horrible heritage of German occupation.
Poland is also not meant to speak in context of what happened during the Second World War, especially in relation to the Holocaust. But this context was Polish suffering and this context ruins the absurd and increasingly deceitful narrative about some “Nazis” and the local population which allegedly eagerly helped them and German soldiers who were “full of compassion”.
Stripping Auschwitz away from the context of Polish fate is a process which is meant to facilitate the manipulation of history and the division of blame separated from war-time reality.
Auschwitz, prior to the creation of a factory of death in Birkenau, was a concentration camp for Poles. In this camp, they were murdered not with gas, but with other efficient methods: starvation, disease, slave labor, phenol, and execution. Auschwitz was made to terrorize Poles, both in Lesser Poland and Silesia and other regions, and the camp’s infamy was spread near and far. Auschwitz was also a huge test for Poles living in the vicinity. Many of them triumphed over this trial.
Gliński emphasized that he nominated Szydło to the Auschwitz Museum Council as a person with an immense amount of political experience, significant social sensitivity and high social support. He also said a factor behind her nomination was that she is a person who “hails from Oświęcim soil and whose family has lived in the former camp’s vicinity for years”. [Oświęcim is a Polish name of Auschwitz].
This is an incredibly crucial factor in the whole matter. Szydło had spoken about Auschwitz many times from the perspective of the people who lived near the camp.
Last year, she revealed a plaque dedicated to railwaymen who sacrificed their lives to support and save the camp’s prisoners.
Szydło commented on her experiences growing up in Oświęcim, the town near which the German camp was constructed.
“I was born in Oświęcim 18 years after the fact. I learned about those days from the stories of my loved ones, who lived in these lands for generations and from the stories of those who survived on both sides of the camp fences. My schooldays were filled with meetings with former prisoners, visits to the museum on occasion of anniversaries somewhat assimilated us with the tragedy. The memories of those who faced camp reality during the war, who were in the ‘lager’ and those, who lived in its shadow are incredibly different. Yet, they had something in common. They were connected by the darkness, which lingered on both sides even on sunny days.”
