In occasione della Giornata della Memoria pubblichiamo il video di Mieczysław Kościelniak.
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On 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi Concentration Camp, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated. Established by the UN General Assembly in 2005, the day aims to pay tribute to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism.
Why do we return to these events from over 80 years ago? Why does Auschwitz-Birkenau continue to draw the world’s attention? Is the remembrance of the millions of victims a sufficient testament to ensure that such crimes never happen again? These are the questions that the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS) invites to reflect upon as part of its annual campaign aimed at increasing awareness of the Holocaust and its catastrophic consequences.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the biggest German Nazi Concentration Camp and extermination center. Between 1940 and 1945 about one million Jews and 100,000 members of other ethnicities, including Poles, Roma as well as Soviet captives, were killed. The methodical extermination at Auschwitz lasted until the very end of the camp’s operation. On January 18, only a few days before the Red Army crossed the Camp’s gates, the evacuation began: nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to go on the death march and about 15,000 died.
Auschwitz is a symbol of the Holocaust, but this unprecedented crime against humanity took place wherever the influence of the Third Reich reached. As a result of the Shoah, nearly 6 million Jews lost their lives, of which about half are victims of different concentration and extermination camps.
In the spirit of responsibility for the present day and concern for the future, the ENRS each year takes part in the commemoration of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This year, we will launch an education and information campaign across our social media channels and digital platforms, highlighting the extent and impact of the Holocaust. An educational toolkit, thought-provoking scholarly articles, an interactive map, and audiovisual materials are just some of the initiatives we have planned.
A poignant and opening highlight of the campaign will be a short film showcasing the work of Mieczysław Kościelniak—a painter, graphic artist, and prisoner of the German death camp Auschwitz. Kościelniak created approximately 300 drawings in the camp, documenting the daily lives of its prisoners. While imprisoned, he was an active member of the clandestine Union of Armed Struggle, tasked with documenting German-Nazi crimes through his artwork. Smuggled out of the camp hidden in bundles of dirty laundry, these drawings now serve not only as a record of tragedy but also as an extraordinary testament to resistance and the resilience of the human spirit.