Holocauste

1967 · Best.-Nr. 182472 — 1967. Auschwitz memorialized - a record of "the first fully 'international' event" at the former camp A commemorative album for the opening of the memorial at Auschwitz on 16 April 1967 an important stage in its transition to an international memorial site. Situated at the western end of the railway lines that cross the camp the memorial remains a central part of the Auschwitz complex. The large granite memorial was designed by the Italian architects Andrea and Pietro Cascella. Approximately 200000 people attended the unveiling including Polish state officials the East German and Italian foreign ministers and prisoner organisations. The first two photographs show the memorial the third the crowd bound in by the barbed wire and the fourth the Polish prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz laying a tribute. The remainder show the attendees eating lunch food stalls and chefs preparing the food. Given this the album was presumably produced for the organizers of the catering. "Abstract in form and vague in its message the monument and the events surrounding its unveiling in April 1967 certainly furthered the memorial site's growing international character and testified to the waning relevance of a traditional Polish-national commemorative idiom at Auschwitz. At the same time however the Birkenau monument failed to specify or acknowledge explicitly the suffering and death of Jews as Auschwitz and therefore took its place in the continuum of commemorative marginalization of the Shoah at the site" Huener pp. 145-6. The memorial does not mention the Jews specifically nor did Cyrankiewicz in his remarks at the event as he wished to continue to present the camp as a specifically Polish tragedy. Nonetheless the unveiling "drew tremendous attention from abroad and can therefore be understood as the first fully 'international' event held at the State Museum at Auschwitz. The highly publicized April ceremonies. reached the wider European public and through the presence of countless journalists the world" Huener p. 146. Oblong quarto 36 x 25 cm containing 28 silver gelatin prints ranging from 17 x 12 to 17 x 23 cm mounted on 21 leaves of thick black card string-tied within blue cloth covers. Fore edge of first leaf a little chipped otherwise binding and contents in excellent condition. Jonathan Huener Auschwitz Poland and the Politics of Commemoration 1945-1979 2003. hardcover