Remembrance Museum educators conducted the final workshop at the Przecieszyn Primary School as part of the “We Remember” project.
The main goal of the project (which began in 2020) is to identify where people who helped prisoners of KL Auschwitz were buried. It also commemorates heroes from the land of Auschwitz, which is why before All Saints’ Day, Museum staff light candles at cemeteries and memorials.
Last year, the educational part of the project included historical walks through cemeteries in Oświęcim, Osiek, Zator and Kęty. This year, museum educators Anita Bury and Joanna Cebulska conducted three workshops dedicated to people who contributed greatly to helping Auschwitz prisoners.
Students from Primary School No. 9 in Oświęcim learned the stories of Janina Kajtoch (Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army pseudonym “Skała”) and Helena Stupka (Union of Armed Struggle/ Home Army) pseudonym “Jadźka”). Later, at the parish cemetery, they lit candles on the graves of the heroines.
The workshop at the Primary School in Poręba Wielka was dedicated to the tragedy of the Kulig family. In 1941, Wawrzyniec and Franciszka Kulig and Wawrzyniec’s sister Stefania Magierowa helped Jan Nowaczek, an Auschwitz escapee. The latter, after being captured by the Germans a few months later, denounced the people who had helped him. As a result, Wawrzyniec Kulig and his sister died in Auschwitz. After hearing the story, participants lit a candle at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered Residents of Poreba Wielka, where Wawrzyniec Kulig’s name is inscribed on a plaque.
The third and final workshop was conducted by educators from the Remembrance Museum of Land of Oświęcim Residents at the Primary School in Przecieszyn. Its heroine was Helena Płotnicka (Peasant Battalions, Union of Armed Struggle/ Home Army, pseud. “Hela,” “Wilga”). She paid with her life for helping the prisoners, dying in Auschwitz in 1944. Students honoured her memory by lighting a candle under the plaque of the People’s House (village hall) in Przecieszyn, which bears the name of Helena Plotnicka.
“In all the schools, the pupils were most impressed by the video testimonies of witnesses to history. There was complete silence while they were being played, and there was great interest on the faces of the young people,” conclude Anita Bury and Joanna Cebulska.
We warmly invite teachers to familiarize themselves with the rich and varied offer of educational workshops offered by the Remembrance Museum: https://edukacja.muzeumpamieci.pl/dla-nauczycieli/
Contact:
Tel. 33 447 40 84
E-mail: edukacja@muzeumpamieci.pl
