Category: Who was the executioner and who was the victim?

          The Patria Nostra Association is implementing the project “Who was the executioner and who was the victim?”, financed by NIW CRSO under the NEW FIO program. The partner of the Patria Nostra Association in implementing the above-mentioned project is the Jewish-American university Touro University Berlin, which runs the “Holocaust Studies” course on its Berlin campus (previously German-language, and currently English-language master’s program “Holocaust Communication and Tolerance”), headed by prof. Stephan Lehnstaedt, researcher of German crimes against Jews and the Polish Nation. It is a source of personnel for German and European museums and memorial sites. Its graduates – gaining in-depth knowledge about the German genocide – most often work professionally in public education in German and international memorial institutions and museums, work as exhibition curators, create documentaries and television programs, develop internet applications, audio guides, etc. Lecturers at Touro University Berlin are aware that, on the one hand, the Holocaust is used as a political argument, and on the other, it serves as evidence of historical awareness, a historical and educational offer, or a strictly tourist offer. Therefore, cooperation with Touro University is an ideal opportunity to present the Polish historical perspective and “encode” in the minds of experts […]

          Thursday, June 15, 2023 will certainly be remembered for a long time by the participants of the study visit  group of German students and scientists in Warsaw as part of the project “Who was the executioner and who was the victim?”, financed by NIW CRSO under the NEW FIO program. After a visit to the former extermination camp in Treblinka, which aroused many emotions and reflections, it was time to meet one of the few living witnesses of the camp’s history. We are talking about Stanisław Zalewski, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Mauthausen Gusen I and Gusen II camps. The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Polish Association of Former Prisoners of Concentration and Extermination Camps, of which Mr. Stanisław is the president. During Thursday’s meeting, he said, among other things: about his experiences in extermination camps and made his guests aware of why historical truth is so important in the context of who was the perpetrator and who was the victim during World War II. Stanisław Zalewski was very pleased with the fact that young people, mostly Germans, wanted to hear about such difficult issues. First, Stanisław Zalewski told his war […]

          Thursday, June 15, 2023 will certainly be remembered for a long time by the participants of the study visit, i.e. a group of German students and scientists in Warsaw as part of the project “Who was the executioner and who was the victim?”, financed by NIW CRSO under the NEW FIO program. Since we ended the previous day at Umschlagplatz – the site of deportations to extermination camps – in order to raise awareness of the enormity of the atrocities committed by the Germans during World War II, we planned a trip to Treblinka. Our guide, just like the previous day, was Paweł Szczerkowski. It is worth recalling here that on July 22, 1942 The liquidation operation in the Warsaw ghetto began. Every day, deportations of 3,000 to 8,000 people were organized from the Umschlagplatz, packed into cattle or freight wagons and taken to Treblinka. The action lasted 46 days, and during this time approximately 250,000 Warsaw Jews traveled this path of death. Located 90 km east of Warsaw, Treblinka was one of three secret extermination camps established as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. More Jews died at Treblinka than at any other […]

          Wednesday, June 14, 2023 This is another day of a study visit of a group of German students and scientists to Warsaw as part of the project “Who was the executioner and who was the victim?”, financed by NIW CRSO under the NEW FIO program. That day we planned a walk entitled “Jewish history and the Warsaw Ghetto tour”. The tour included pre-war Jewish life in Warsaw, the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the current revival of the Jewish community. First, we spent some time at Castle Square and walked the streets of the Old Town, noting that it was rebuilt from the ruins and is now our pride and favorite meeting place not only for Warsaw residents, but also for tourists from all over the world. The start of the main part of the tour was in Grzybowski Square, where buildings have been preserved from the times when Warsaw was home to the largest Jewish community after New York and the world center of Yiddish culture. Our guests learned, among other things, that when Hasidim lived together with socialists, the Esperanto language was created, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, the future Nobel Prize winner, wrote his first short […]