Three members leave the Auschwitz Museum advisory board after joining a PiS politician

In Poland, three members stepped down from an advisory board of the Auschwitz Museum in protest. They do so because of the appointment of the former Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo of the ruling party PiS. According to the resigned members, the advisory council is politicized with the appointment of Szydlo. The council consists of nine Poles and meets once a year.

Szydlo, now a Member of the European Parliament, called the appointment a great honor. She comes from Oswiecim, Poland, where the former Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz is located.

The resigned members are philosopher Stanislaw Krajewski, former deputy director of the Auschwitz Museum Krystyna Oleksy and historian Marek Lasota. Lasota is director of the resistance museum in Krakow and is a member of the PiS himself. He was a candidate to become mayor of Krakow for the party.

In a letter to the Polish Minister of Culture, who appoints the members of the council, the members explained their decision. Lasota writes, “The council was for historical purposes, not politics.”

‘Historical policy offensive’

According to Krajewski, the addition of Szydlo cannot be separated from a political strategy pursued by the conservative ruling party PiS since 2015, he says. against AP news agency: “There is a fear that this is another step to use the Auschwitz Museum for their historical policy.”

The Polish government is actively trying to influence historiography in order to create a patriotic image of the country during World War II. In 2016, President Duda called this a new “historic policy offensive to strengthen the country’s international position”.

Holocaustwet

Poland’s policy mainly wants to emphasize Poland’s heroics and victimization during World War II, while Poland’s role in the Holocaust is being swept under the rug, critics say. In 2018, the country passed a controversial law that made it illegal to accuse Poland of complicity in the Holocaust.

Nazi camps on Polish soil should also absolutely not be called Polish. After disagreements with Israel Poland weakened the law: Violation was no longer punishable, but was included in civil law.

Migration

In 2017, Szydlo gave a speech in Auschwitz as prime minister. She said, “In today’s troubled times, Auschwitz is a great lesson in showing that everything must be done to protect the safety and lives of everyone’s citizens.”

Opponents perceive this sentence as supporting the Polish government’s position not to accept refugees in the context of an EU redistribution plan. Her predecessor Donald Tusk responded: “Such words in such a place should never be spoken by a Polish prime minister.” Szydlo was accused of misusing Auschwitz for political purposes. However, she denied that her words had to do with migration.

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