Be Responsible for History

Anyone who has read my post of a few weeks ago on my visit to Auschwitz knows that I came away less than pleased with how the place has been preserved and is treated today. Well, there’s another aspect of it that bothers me, too.

Historians and the people who design and maintain museums have a sacred responsibility to convey the past in the objective light of truth. Unfortunately, as we all know, history is as malleable and as valuable as gold to those who would abuse it. Auschwitz is a prime example.

Throughout the communist period, authourities all over Eastern Europe misrepresented the Holocaust by playing down its Jewish aspect, as much as that was possible. It would be nice to think that perhaps they did this out of a misguided attempt to equally include the non-Jewish victims of Nazi oppression, but we know it was really the result of anti-Semitism.

Today, Auschwitz looks more like a shrine to Polish nationalism and martyrdom than a monument to Jewish suffering. Several buildings are devoted to exhibits of Polish suffering and heroism. The other displays devoted to Jews identify them by their nationalities first and foremost. A single building tells of the overall Jewish experience.

I’d like to think that this is because of a desire to portray the martyred Jews as members of a larger Polish (and European) community rather than the worthless and persecuted minority that the Nazis defined them as. I know differently, however. This is a prime example of what happens when national governments have control over how history is passed on to future generations in state museums.

There was so much more to the Holocaust than the terrible sufferings of Polish political prisoners at Auschwitz. It could be argued that the torture and killing of such prisoners was the original purpose of Auschwitz, but when so few people go down the road and see the cemetery of nearly a million Jews at Birkenau and little mention is made of them, history is misrepresented.

Post a comment on how you think we can remedy problems like this.