What’s in a name?
From Oswiecim to Auschwitz – and back.
The very first reading in Facing History and Ourselve’s
Resource Book Crimes against Humanity and
Civilization: the Genocide of the Armenians is called “What’s in a
Name?” The reading looks at how the
names we use often tell a deeper story of our identity and our history. Some people have two names, reflecting a
diversity of cultures and communities.
Some people have private names, reserved only for those closest to
them. In the concluding Connections
section of this reading Sandra Cisneros is quoted from her novel The House on Mango Street. The narrator, Esperanza, says, “I would like to baptize myself under a new
name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees.” I reflected on this reading and this
Connections quote with me as we visited the town of Oswiecim.
On the bus ride to the town a discussion started among
participants on our bus as to why Oswiecim has chosen not to change its
name. In modern society Oswiecim is
better known by its German, and outdated name, Auschwitz – location of the
notorious Nazi concentration/death camp.
Why would a town, so closely associated with one of the most iconic
images and locations of the Holocaust, choose to retain its name? The answer lies in some of the discussions
we’ve been investigating all week – what is the history of Polish-Jewish
relations before the war, and how has Poland wrestled with the memory of those
towns?
Oswiecim – which in Yiddish
(Oshpitsin) means welcome or guest – had a diverse, pre-war history; the town,
historically, was approximately 50% Jewish.
Our hosts at the Auschwitz Jewish Center – which today includes an
education center located in the home of the town’s last Jewish resident and the
only active synagogue in the town of Oswiecim – gave us a tour of the old city
center, including the site of the former Great Synagogue (which had seating for
2,000 people). We were told the story of
the rabbi of Oswiecim welcoming the town’s new priest in the early 1900s as a
sign of respect and that the two were often seen walking through town together. Today, there are memorial signs around the
town square honoring those lost in the Holocaust – Jewish and non-Jewish, and
those who rescued – Jewish and non-Jewish.
The town, which would become the center of death, had a history of
integration. The video of the Center
speaks to that history.
Maciek Zabierowski,
Education and New Media Manager of the Auschwitz Jewish Center – is a long time
friend of Facing History. He attended an
international Facing History seminar with Karen Murphy and actively uses our
approach and resources to help visitors to the Center study the history of the
town and the Holocaust.
Tomasz Kuncewicz
(right),
Director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, and
Maciek Zabierowski (left), Education and New Media Manager of the Auschwitz Jewish Center.
Maciek Zabierowski (left), Education and New Media Manager of the Auschwitz Jewish Center.
The town
continues to reflect on its past – both that of integration and that of deep
loss. It hosts the annual Life
Festival, created by lifelong Oswiecim resident Darken Maciborek. The festival (this year headlined by Eric
Clapton) seeks to “break the spell of [Oswiecim] that is commonly associated
solely with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
The main concept of the Festival is to build peaceful relations beyond
cultural and state borders where there is no place for anti-Semitism, racism
and other forms of xenophobia.” The
advertisements for the festival (see image below) have a clear presence in the
town’s center.
“Anti-Semitism
is a sin against god and humanity.” – Life Festival advertisement/”graffiti”.
The
Auschwitz-Birkenau death/concentration camp has had several names since its
prisoners were liberated in 1945. It was
erroneously referred to as a “Polish death camp,” implying that its creation
was a Polish decision rather than that of the Nazi perpetrators. It is also a misconception that the camp, and
the others within Poland’s borders, was built due to a proclivity towards
anti-Semitism within the Polish population.
This ignores the Nazi’s tactical decision to build its mechanisms of
death near already existing train lines, near natural resources, and close to
the existing Jewish communities. Due to
such misconceptions, Oswiecim continues its efforts to establish a narrative
separate from the dark shadow created by the Nazis.
There is a lot
of power in names. To call the town of
Oswiecism “Auschwitz” freezes it within a horrific moment in time and gives the
Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust the final word as to the town’s
identity. “I would
like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one
nobody sees.” Using the name Oswiecim – not a
new name, but rather a reclaimed one – brings back a history that Auschwitz
attempted to destroy and allows the real history to be seen.
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