At the exhibition, which will be opened with a commemoration, Austria will be represented by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka (VP), Second National Council President Doris Bures (SP) and several ministers.
The new exhibition has been revised historically. In 1978 the first Austrian exhibition was in Block 17 of the former Nazi concentration and extermination camp and now the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau has been opened. At that time Austria had presented itself as the “first victim of National Socialism”, the complicity was largely ignored.
According to parliamentary information, the title “Distance” of the new show not only stands for the geographical distance between Austria and Auschwitzbut especially for the removal of the after Auschwitz deported people – from Austria and from life. In addition to the fate of the Austrian victims in Auschwitz and the resistance of Austrian prisoners in the concentration camp, the exhibition, which was created by a scientific-curatorial team led by Hannes Sulzenbacher and Albert Lichtblau and architect Martin Kohlbauer, also tells of the involvement of Austrians in the crimes committed there. The redesign was coordinated by the National Fund of the Republic of Austria.
Largest Nazi extermination camp in World War II
The commemoration takes place at the invitation of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Fund, President Sobotka, and the Director of the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Piotr MA Cywinski. Among others, Federal President Van der Bellen and National Council President Sobotka, President of the International, will speak Auschwitz-Committees, Marian Turski, and the President of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien, Oskar Deutsch. The Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Culture and National Heritage, Piotr Glinski, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg and European Minister Karoline Edtstadler (both VP) and State Secretary for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer (Greens) will speak at the opening of the exhibition.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the Nazi German extermination camps during World War II. More than a million people died there. They were killed in gas chambers, shot or driven to death through forced labor and starvation. Most of the victims were Jews. Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and Sinti, Poles, political prisoners and homosexuals were among those murdered.
