Auschwitz, the War to Fear

When Saturday afternoon, January 27, 1945, the soldiers of the 60o Army of the Soviet Union freed Auschwitz-Birkenau, built by Germany in occupied Poland, the SS troops had blown up the gas chambers and evacuated the camp, but soon the Soviets discovered that something terrible had happened there. According to reports, Russian soldiers found 600 corpses, 70,000 more dead than alive prisoners, 837,000 clothes, many of them for children, 44,000 pairs of shoes, and 7.7 tonnes of packed hair, are estimated to be thousands of women. Two years after their release in 1947, the camp was transformed into a museum thanks to the persistence of survivors who had its moral obligation to preserve it.

Today after 72 years the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Nazi concentration and extermination camp (1940-1945), according to Neskos, who declared mankind's heritage in 1979, is facing a restoration project designed to preserve everything exactly as it was, or as it was that Saturday, when Russian soldiers discovered that impossible evil to conceive. All the decisions to preserve it are moral, says Piotr M.A. Cywinski, director of the museum since 2006. This place is more than a museum, it's a unique plan in the world. This will allow us to plan a preservation for the next 20 years, not just the buildings, but all the facilities. The restoration of the camp needs financing and a Auschwitz foundation was established, whose president is entrepreneur Ronald S. Lauder. This foundation has collected $112 million from various countries, from personalities like Steven Spielberg and from institutions.

Auschwitz is not like any ordinary museum, it's actually not even a museum, it's a big cemetery, from which 1.3 million people passed, 840,000 of which passed from the gas chambers, and it's a murder scenario yet intact. As long as there are survivors and witnesses Auschwitz is an open case. The Auschwitz International Council meets twice a year to debate the interventions. Although his role is a consultant, it has its own weight, but the final word remains to the museum authorities that depend on the Polish state. Total conservation includes 45 brick barracks, 22 wooden barracks, 21 small and 6 large guard towers, 270 m of archive materials, 39,000 negatives, 3,800 bags, 470 prosthes, 250 Jewish religious garments, 40 kilograms of glasses, 12,000 kitchen instruments, 110,000 pairs of shoes. Exposed behind a crystal in a hall of hair as undeniable proof of what happened there.

As organic material breaks down and needs a very complex process to preserve. There's been debate about conservation or not. The museum's managers thought that nature would follow its path, but a survivor, historian and head of Yad Vashme (The Museum of Holocaust in Jerusalem), Israel Gutman, has already passed away who closed the debate saying: <x0 Blocks exist, we can't deny it. Let future generations decide what to do with them.” Auschwitz was from the beginning a different place even within the Nazi system.

Initially due to the surface, it was thought of about 30,000 prisoners, while there were only 20,000 in all of Germany. The first camp was set up in some of the old buildings abandoned by the Polish army outside the city of Oswiemim that the Germans baptized with Auschwitz. When it was built in 1940, it was not destined for the murder of Jews, the goal was to eliminate the opposition and Polish intellectuals within the project to wipe out this German-infested country in 1939. In fact, the first victims of gas chambers were the Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was built a mile away, a year later, in1941, had a greater capacity, reached up to 90,000 prisoners, and was part of the European Jewish extermination plan. There were four gas rooms on the job, and about 80% of those deported were killed immediately after the selection by the SS. The remaining 20% worked to the death, didn't last more than three months. There was also a third camp, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, built by the chemical giant IG Farben.

Of the 35,000 prisoners working as slaves 25,000 died. The entire network of subcampers where slaves worked is the most unknown part of the Auschwitz system. Other extermination camps throughout Poland were very small, the purpose was industrial murder, which makes the Holocaust an unprecedented crime. The victims have no bones left. Of Belzec Camp, where 500,000 to 600,000 people have been killed are stored only two witnesses. These camps disappeared from the Nazis, but they couldn't with Auschwitz. Our objective is to give life to objects belonging to victims, says Beata Schulman, director of the Auschwitz Foundation Committee.

Shoes are photographed before being treated in order to preserve themselves as they have been, as well as barrels, toothbrushes, bags, each requires three weeks of treatment and stored in a special closet. So do the rusted cans of Zyklon B, the poison used in gas rooms. Trees are also temporarily uprooted and planted. Before and after everything must be what it was. Some Auschwitz I wards are still stored as they were. It is the bed, the drawings of prisoners, the dirt of toilets, another form of torture, as many of the prisoners suffered from dysentery and could use the bathroom only twice a day. All the intervention here is done on the basis of context, so the marks of the walls made from the beds have remained such. Neither has uncleanness been preserved.

Birkenau was built with materials that were not designed to prolong. The idea of building gas rooms was ruled out, but it is working to preserve their ruins from being swallowed up by the ground. The wood barracks are destroyed, the rest are treated. The authenticity and memory must be preserved. This camp is not just material. All genocides begin in words. The restoration work is a tribute to the victims, for that child who obeyed the command to tie his shoelaces, thinking that he would take it back. / Source: “ElPais” ) Prepared in Albanian by The world..