Instytucja Kultury województwa Małopolskiego

First online conference a success!

Pamięć i postpamięć - konferencja online
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On Thursday 3rd December 2020, the Remembrance Museum of Land of Oświęcim held its first ever online conference. For almost three hours, speakers shared the fate of Siberians during the conference entitled “Remembrance and Post-Remembrance– Siberian families in the Land of Oświęcim. The 80th anniversary of the mass transports to the USSR.”

The conference was co – organised by the Centre for Documentation of Exile, Displacement and Resettlement at the Pedagogical University of Cracow.

The conference, probably one of the first organised by cultural institutions in our area, was held with live translation into sign language by Bożena Nowak. The 3rd December is International Day of People with Disabilities (since 1992).

“These stories are not directly connected to the work of our Museum. Nonetheless, they have been firmly imprinted in the collective memories of residents, and residents of the Land of Oświęcim as well,” said Marcin Niedziela, District Head in his opening speech.

District Board Member Teresa Jankowska and Remembrance Museum Director Dorota Mleczko also took part in the meeting along with MC Anita Bury, all coordinating the gathering from our temporary studio.

Director Dorota Mleczko, with reference to the current Covid-19 pandemic, said, “The story of Poles transported to Siberia takes on a new dimension in these difficult days in which we find ourselves.”

She added that the stories of those who lived in much more difficult conditions than at present may be a lesson in humility for us living today.

Pedagogical University Professor Hubert Chudzio of the Institute of History and Archival Studies at the Pedagogical University in Cracow spoke of the fate of Polish citizens who were deported deep into the Soviet Union in the years 1940 – 1941 who, following the Sikorski-Maisky Agreement, travelled through Iran to Africa.

Anna Hejczyk MA of the Centre for Documentation of Exile, Displacement and Resettlement at the Pedagogical University of Cracow informed participants of the work of the Centre and shared interesting stories of finding, sometimes many years on, those people who shared the same difficult fate as residents.

Irena Wacławczyk, Katarzyna Białas-Szafraniec i Zbigniew Pawełczyk shared the incredible stories of their family members from the Land of Oświęcim who were affected by the exile to Siberia.

A recording of the conference is available online. We warmly invite you to watch it.