Chapter 15 - Trip to the Museum

Summary

During the first twenty years following World War II, in Poland, Auschwitz was a site of political and ideological manipulations, where numerous political interests intertwined, structuring and restructuring its meaning. In the early years, Auschwitz served as a symbol of national struggle, but also as a tool of Cold War propaganda, a site of antifascist/anticapitalist manifestations. It is here, for example, that the Polish government staged a demonstration against the Korean War to denounce the “imperialistic” policies of the USA. And in the 1950s, at one of the exhibits, pictures of Auschwitz prisoners were placed alongside photos of New York's homeless and caricatures of American soldiers. In 1955, following Stalin's death, nationalist sentiments resurfaced: a new exhibit was opened that again stressed the national, rather than the ethnic, identities of the Auschwitz victims. As a result of all the political propaganda, in the early 1960s Auschwitz became a principal destination of school groups and workplace trips, visited more often than Wawel. In homage to Borowski, in 1959 Tadeusz Rożewicz even wrote a short story, “Trip to the Museum” [Wycieczka do muzeum], attempting to capture the sheer horror and superficiality of those trips. Using Borowski's deadpan tone, Rożewicz coolly describes the stream of tourists wandering the Auschwitz site. In search of excitement, carelessly quoting sentimental cliches and propaganda slogans, they eagerly ask where they can see “the hair.”