Piotr Cywinski, director, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Sponsors: Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, Copernicus Endowment, CREES, Museum Studies Program, Polish Mission.
What is the future of the biggest Memory Site in the world? What will Auschwitz be like in the 21st century? What are the challenges faced by the memory of the Holocaust (Shoah) and of the German concentration camps’ victims? Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywinski will present today’s picture of what is left after Auschwitz. He will also discuss the conservation and education issues, related to both preserving the material evidence of Nazi crimes and saving the memory of the victims. In the time when the new museum narrative style is being created, he will talk about the most difficult problems in building a clear message about the hardest moment in human history, in a place which is the intersection of various memories, separate visions, and often incompatible sensitivities of the visitors.
Piotr M.A. Cywinski has been the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim since 2006. He received his PhD in medieval history from the Polish Academy of Science in 2006 and also graduated from Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg and the Catholic University of Lublin. Dr. Cywinski is a member of the Warsaw Catholic Intelligentsia Club and the Polish Council of Christians and Jews.
