Symbols of survival
By : Justyna Wrobel
While local and international media debate the morality of a recently opened Oswiecim disco on the same land as a former tannery used by the Nazis to sort the property of Auschwitz's victims, the city seems to be the most peaceful place in the world.
"Oswiecim is not Auschwitz," said Ryszard, who didn't want to disclose his surname "It is a town with 50,000 people who want to live like people in any other city in the world." Ryszard works as a security guard in the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, which opened in Oswiecim last Tuesday.
Ryszard was born in Libiaý near Oswiecim, but has lived in Oswiecim for many years. He was friendly to all the visitors who wanted to tour the newly refurbished synagogue used as a carpet warehouse until 1997 and the exhibits featured at the Auschwitz Jewish Center, which shares the building with the synagogue. Both the center and the synagogue are being funded by the New York-based Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation.
In 1939, 8,000 of the town's 14,000 inhabitants were Jewish. Today, there is none; the last Jewish resident, Shimon Klueger, died four months ago.
Oswiecim residents Mirek Ganobis and Grzegorz Galaj met in the synagogue last Thursday. "It is a pity that Shimon couldn't wait for the synagogue," Galaj said. Both see the opening of the synagogue and the exhibit to be equally meaningful for residents and visitors commemorating their collective or personal pasts.
"The synagogue is very important for people from Oswiecim," Galaj said. "They want to show that they remember the town's Jewish residents."
"I can't say that I am for or against the disco," Galaj said. "I am neutral." He added that it is difficult to live in a town, which is perceived as being primarily a cemetery. "Whatever we do here, it will be wrong," Ganobis said. "But (let's remember that) Auschwitz is a camp, and Oswiecim is a town with an 800-year history."
Ganobis and his friend are deeply involved in the town's attempt to live alongside the past. Eight years ago, they set up the Polish-Israeli Friendship Association. Today, Ganobis is a member of advisory board at the Auschwitz Jewish Center and the artifacts of Oswiecim's Jewish life he collected are on display at the center.
Stanislaw Pawlowski, a 70-year-old pensioner, was admiring the collection. He said that he started studying world religions 10 years ago. And what does he think about the disco? Pawlowski said he is more interested in exploring the Jewish religion than taking part in the dispute over the System disco.
"The disco is sufficiently far away from the concentration camp," Pawlowski said. He knows, of course, that there used to be a tannery there. "There is no conflict between those two things, the disco and a tannery, being in the same place," he said.
Leszek Szuster, director of the International Youth Meeting Center (MDMS), thinks differently, for both moral and practical reasons.
"Studies show the land was an execution site," Szuster said. In addition, he feels the disco is too close to the center, which is run by a Polish-German foundation and functions as an educational facility for both visitors and residents. Only a parking lot separates the two, and "nobody would like to stay in a hotel near a disco," he said.
For security guard Albin Szczerbowki, who watched over the closed System disco last Thursday, the answer is simple.
"Teenagers should have a place to have fun," he said. "And after all, there was no place in Oswiecim where the prisoners didn't work."
