Language:
English
Pages:
346 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Year of publication:
2017
Keywords:
Exhibition Code Name Żegota. The Hidden Aid (2017 - 2018 : Kraków)
;
Widerstand
;
Ausstellung
;
Schoa
;
Krakau
Abstract:
The exhibition Code Name Żegota – the Hidden Aid is devoted to one of the most tragic events in the 20th century history – the Holocaust, precisely planned and performed by the Germans, taking advantage of police and military formations, as well as an extensive clerical system and industrial potential of the Third Reich. The crime of an unprecedented scope was committed within the areas of Central-Eastern European countries occupied by Germany, in which within the area of the pre-war Republic of Poland. It is uncertain when and in what circumstances the decision on murdering the majority of the European Jews was taken, since no document on that matter has been preserved. The mass extermination of the Jewish population inhabiting towns and cities of the eastern area of the Second Republic and the Soviet Union was commenced in summer and autumn 1941 by the pacification divisions, so called Einsatzgruppen which consisted of individual Einsatzkommandos, following the Wehrmacht units. The exhibition raises the topic of the support provided to the Jews by the Poles, still relevant and arousing many emotions, both the support provided in an organised manner, as well as individual one. The title refers to the code name used by the “Żegota” secret Council to Aid Jews. Its responsibility was to save possibly the greatest number of Jews, both hiding ones and imprisoned in various camps, doomed to slow death as a result of malnutrition, the ambient conditions, and often as a result of physically strenuous labour for German industry. The underground Council to Aid Jews was founded in Warsaw in late 1942 as a unit at the Government Delegation for Poland, in place of Konrad Żegota Provisional Committee to Aid Jews, active from September. In spring 1943 the subsidiaries of the Council to Aid Jews were established in Krakow and Lvov. The exhibition currently presented in the MHK branch of Oskar Schindler’s Factory unfolds the story lines present in permanent exhibition Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939–1945. It is not limited to present the organisational structures of “Żegota”, operation methods and cases of aid, but it also presents a wider context of rescuing Jews. The purpose of the exhibition is to familiarise the visitors with various attitudes of the Polish society towards the Holocaust, mostly all the dilemmas faced by those who sought shelter and those who decided to provide support risking their own lives. It also attempts to answer a question crucial from the present day point of view: what were the conditions of providing the aid? Who provided it? What was the attitude of the society to the rescuers and the rescued? What did the everyday life in the shadows look like? The exhibition draws the attention of the visitor to certain cases, stories of individuals through which it presents the complex reality of the German occupation period. The exhibition is based mainly on the coverage of the survivors and witnesses, as well as on the preserved documents.
URL:
http://www.mhk.pl/exhibitions/291
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