First look: New Boston exhibit offers glimpse inside infamous Auschwitz concentration camp
A world-renowned exhibition opening in Boston on Friday will offer an unparalleled look inside the infamous Auschwitz complex, Nazi Germany’s largest concentration and extermination camp.
The exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away,” located at The Castle at Park Plaza on Columbus Avenue, features more than 700 original artifacts and objects on loan from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, Yad Vashem in Israel, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, and over 15 other international museums.
“The exhibit has many layers and context,” said Pawel Sawicki, of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. “We hope people will learn the complexity of the story, and they will get a lot of facts.”
Sawicki added, “For Auschwitz, the story is very complex. It’s very complicated. “On the very human level, we want to present this story. We want to present this story as a human story.”
Photos of artifacts on display:
The artifacts include concrete posts from the fence of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, a gas mask used by the SS garrison members, prisoners’ personal items, including journals, shoes, and suitcases that had been packed by Auschwitz deportees in the hopes of one day returning to their lives, among many other things.
“The most important part of the artifacts is actually not what we can see, but what we can learn,” said Luis Ferreiro, exhibit director. “I hope people can understand how societies can turn from democracies into genocides.”
An estimated 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz between 1941-1945.
“We do hope the human tragedy of Auschwitz is a key to understanding the world we live in today,” Sawicki said.
The exhibit will run through the beginning of September.
For more information on the exhibit and to buy tickets, click here.
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