65TH ANNIVERSARY OF AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 WARSAW 000096 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR S/CPR (PRICE),EUR/CE, EUR/OHI, NEA/IPA, DRL/SEAS NSC FOR HOVENIER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV IS PL SUBJECT: 65TH ANNIVERSARY OF AUSCHWITZ LIBERATION HIGHLIGHTS POLISH-JEWISH PROGRESS REF: WARSAW 57 WARSAW 00000096 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Polish government officials addressed Jewish and Polish suffering in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. FCC Chairman Julius M. Genachowski, who led the U.S. Presidential Delegation, participated in a Holocaust education conference attended by high-level officials from 32 countries. At the conference, Chairman Genachowki introduced a video message from President Obama. The delegation later attended the opening of a new Russian exhibit at Auschwitz-I -- an important development in terms of Poland's efforts to "reset" its relations with Russia, although the exhibit retains many of the themes and elements of its Soviet-era predecessor. Remarks by Polish President Kaczynski, PM Tusk, and International Auschwitz Council Chairman Wladyslaw Bartoszewski all focused on the obligation to remember and to ensure that Holocaust-era atrocities are never repeated. Israeli PM Netanyahu noted the prominent role of Polish Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust, and thanked Polish officials for their efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) A U.S. Presidential delegation led by FCC Chairman Julius M. Genachowski visited Krakow and Oswiecim January 26-28 to take part in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Other delegation members included Ambassador Feinstein; Susan ¶S. Sher, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady; U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah S. Rosenthal; as well as three Auschwitz survivors: Roman R. Kent, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee; Charlene P. Schiff; and Edwarda Sternberg-Powidzki. During the commemoration ceremonies, Polish President Lech Kaczynski presented U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Executive Director Sara Bloomfield with the Republic of Poland's Order of Merit award for her achievements in the field of Holocaust education. "MEMORY, RESPONSIBILITY, EDUCATION" ¶3. (U) Prior to the January 27 formal ceremony, the delegation participated, along with Philip Rosenfelt and Matthew Yale of the U.S. Department of Education, in a Holocaust Education conference in Oswiecim hosted by Polish Education Minister Katarzyna Hall. The conference, entitled "Auschwitz -- Memory, Responsibility, Education," was attended by high-level government officials from 32 countries. Addressing conference participants, Chairman Genachowski described his family's experience during the Holocaust and the heroism of non-Jews who risked their lives to save his parents. He noted that survival brings with it obligations: he quoted Elie Wiesel, who taught "If we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices." Genachowski noted that the memory of atrocities committed at Auschwitz must steel humanity's resolve to fight anti-Semitism, hatred and racism. He urged the deployment of technology -- perverted for evil by the Nazis -- "to shine a light on oppression and intolerance, to illuminate persecution and dehumanization, and to take oppression and mass murder out of the shadows." He also underscored the moral imperative to preserve Auchwitz and other physical sites of remembrance, "because they shock us into an understanding that ideas alone cannot." PRESIDENT OBAMA'S VIDEO MESSAGE ¶4. (U) Following presentations from each delegation, Genachowski introduced President Obama's video message, in which the President expressed gratitude to Poland's leadership for "preserving a place of such great pain for the Polish people (...) a place of remembrance and learning for the world." In his remarks, the President emphasized the "sacred duty to remember," as well as the "burden of seeing our common humanity; of resisting anti-Semitism and ignorance in all its forms; of refusing to become a bystander to evil, whenever and wherever it rears its ugly face." In addition to recalling the evil committed at Auschwitz, the President also spoke about humanity's capacity for good and recalled acts of compassion and resistance, including "Polish rescuers and those who earned their place forever in the Righteous Among the Nations." He also praised survivors as "living memorials to the loved ones you left here. And to the spirit we must strive to uphold in our time." The President's video message aired almost simultaneously in Krakow at the Third International Forum "Let My People Live" hosted by the WARSAW 00000096 002.2 OF 003 European Jewish Congress. RUSSIAN EXHIBIT ¶5. (SBU) Following the Holocaust education conference, the delegation attended the opening of an exhibit focused on the Soviet Army's liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The exhibit, intended to replace a Soviet-era installation, has been the subject of prolonged negotiations between the Russian government and the Polish government-run Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. At issue are competing narratives of Polish and Russian heroism/suffering during and after World War II. The new exhibit -- not yet complete -- opened on a temporary basis. It still retains many of the same themes and elements of its Soviet-era predecessor, and fails to mention who the victims of Auschwitz were. Nonetheless, GOP officials on-site characterized the fact that the exhibit opened at all as an important step forward in their efforts to "reset" with Russia. OFFICIAL CEREMONY ¶6. (U) President Kaczynski, PM Tusk, Israeli PM Netanyahu, Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Director Piotr Cywinski, and two survivors -- one a Polish Jew and one a Polish Catholic -- addressed delegates, survivors, those who rescued Jews during World War II, and the general public. A Roma survivor also invited to attend was waylaid by a minor auto accident en route to Oswiecim. Russian Education Minister Fursenko read a letter from President Medvedev. On the margins of the ceremony, Ambassador Feinstein and Chairman Genachowski spoke briefly with President Kaczynski and PM Netanyahu. ¶7. (U) In his speech, President Kaczynski pointed out that the Nazis originally tested their extermination technology on Polish political prisoners interned at Auschwitz-I. Although Polish Catholics and Jews both suffered disproportionately at Auschwitz, only Jews were singled out for murder simply because they were Jews, he said. Kaczynski stressed the importance of education and memory to ensure that atrocities committed at Nazi death camps throughout Europe -- many on occupied Polish soil -- were never repeated again. The President concluded by noting that the crimes committed at Auschwitz were not committed by a criminal group, but by a state -- "by the then-German state, the Third Reich. We must remember that might does not always make right." ¶8. (U) Both PM Tusk and his Plenipotentiary for International Dialogue, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (an 88-year-old Auschwitz survivor who chairs the International Auschwitz Council) invoked the name of Jan Karski, the Polish courier who in 1942-43 carried news of Nazi atrocities to the UK and the United States. "Why was the world silent? Why did the world allow it to happen?" Tusk asked, moments after Bartoszewski noted that the "free world was not interested in our suffering and death." Bartoszewski expressed hope that memory of victims' suffering would oblige future generations to live together in respect for human dignity and in active defiance of hatred and disdain towards other people "and especially all forms of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, even when it is hypocritically called anti-Zionism." Tusk spoke of the duty to bear witness against the deepest despair and organized hatred, to ensure that it never happens again. Tusk and Bartoszewski both highlighted the urgent need to fund preservation projects at Auschwitz, expressing hope that more countries would contribute to the Auschwitz-Birkenau endownment. ¶9. (U) Israeli PM Netanyahu began his remarks by thanking the GOP for the "historic effort it is making to commemorate the greatest catastrophe that befell my people and the greatest crime committed against humanity." He noted the long history shared by Poles and Jews, one which includes tremendous cultural accomplishments and the "lowest low" humanity has experienced. He noted that one-third of the Righteous Gentiles -- those who risked their lives and their families' lives to save Jews -- were Poles. MEMORIAL EVENT ¶10. (U) Following the formal ceremony, high-ranking government officials, religious leaders, heads of delegation, representatives of the diplomatic corps, and survivors walked in silence to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial. After Union of Jewish Communities president Piotr Kadlcik blew the shofar, Poland's chief rabbi Michael Schudrich recited WARSAW 00000096 003.2 OF 003 Kaddish and Lodz rabbi Simcha Keller recited El Maley Rachamim. After President Kaczynski's chaplain, Reverend Roman Indrzejczyk, delivered a brief prayer of eternal rest, Catholic and Jewish religious leaders together recited Psalm ¶42. Following prayers, President Kaczynski, PM Tusk, heads of delegation, ambassadors, and survivors were invited to place candles at the base of the monument. COMMENT ¶11. (SBU) GOP officials were clearly intent throughout the day on demonstrating their responsible stewardship of the Auschwitz site -- as well as their ownership of the commemoration and other related events. That said, participants at the ceremony told Embassy representatives they had observed since 1989 an evolution in Polish rhetoric on the nature of suffering at Auschwitz. Rather than focusing on Polish suffering -- as was the case before 1989 -- President Kaczynski and other GOP officials emphasized Jewish suffering. Several Embassy contacts in the Jewish community characterized this as an important development for Polish-Jewish relations. FEINSTEIN