On 12 December 2025, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum opens the first part of its new main exhibition.

The grounds of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau were transformed into a Museum just two years after liberation. In 1947, following a long and extremely turbulent debate about the future of this site, an unprecedented decision was made to preserve the remains of the camp and open them to visitors wishing to pay tribute to the victims. It was a decision unique in both Europe and the world. There had been no existing model for protecting a site that was simultaneously a relic of mass crime, a place of remembrance, and a vast cemetery containing the ashes of hundreds of thousands of people.

Auschwitz permanently redefined the concept of human civilization and the moral boundaries of humanity. In the postwar years, there were no legal or conservation mechanisms capable of providing the necessary protection for such a place—therefore a museum was created here, and it was given a special status. Its statute explicitly defines it not only as a museum institution but also as a cemetery. From the very beginning, it was clear that historic Auschwitz could not be contained within any known museological framework: the authenticity of the space, its silent message, and its tragic history constitute the essence of this site of memory.

The current main exhibition, opened in 1956, still exerts a strong emotional and educational impact on visitors despite nearly seven decades having passed. Although minor updates have been introduced over time, its original concept has remained largely unchanged. Its simple form—based on facts, documents, photographs, and the authenticity of the site—has long been in harmony with the character of the Memorial, allowing visitors to focus primarily on the history itself. The authenticity of the Auschwitz-Birkenau grounds remains the highest value and the key medium of memory about the tragedy that unfolded in the camp.

Discussions about creating a new main exhibition continued for many decades, and conceptual work began more than twenty years ago. The overriding goal was to develop an exhibition that would better reflect the contemporary state of research on the camp’s history, while at the same time preserving the fundamental character of the site. This required extensive conservation work, the structural reinforcement of the blocks, and the introduction of new exhibition solutions that respect the unique nature of Auschwitz.

On 12 December 2025, after years of preparation, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum will inaugurate the first part of the new main exhibition in former prisoner blocks 8 and 9. This will be an essential step toward creating a complete, three-part historical narrative that will ultimately include additional blocks. The final concept envisions three complementary exhibitions presenting the history of the camp from three interconnected perspectives: the perpetrator, the victim, and the prisoner.

The final layout of the new main exhibition will include:

Auschwitz as an Institution – exhibition in Blocks 4 and 5.
It will present the structure and functioning of the SS apparatus, the development of the camp complex, mechanisms of terror, and the administrative logic of the concentration and extermination camp.
The Extermination of the Jews in KL Auschwitz – exhibition in Blocks 6 and 7.
This part will portray Auschwitz as a central element of the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe. The narrative will focus on deportations, selections, the extermination process, and the individual stories of the victims.
Prisoners’ Camp Experience – exhibition in Blocks 8 and 9.
This is the first of the new sections to open to the public, presenting the prisoners’ daily life, suffering, struggle for survival, and the systemic dehumanization imposed by the Nazis.

The aim of the new main exhibition is to introduce visitors to the authentic space of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. The exhibition weaves together two narrative strands: on the one hand, it presents the historical development of the camp—from its establishment in 1940 to its tragic end in January 1945; on the other, it depicts the individual fates of people whose lives were destroyed or irreversibly marked by the camp. Against the backdrop of events that shaped one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century, concrete individuals are presented: their faces, names, testimonies, and personal belongings. In this way, the history of mass murder is anchored in the dimension of personal experience, and the suffering of millions becomes perceptible on a human scale.

A key element of the exhibition is the presentation of the changing functions of Auschwitz. Initially established as a concentration camp intended to terrorize Poles, it was later transformed into one of the main centers of the extermination of European Jews. As the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex expanded, the camp became the site of mass deportations, selections, and systematic killing, carried out primarily in the gas chambers of Birkenau. It is this dual function—as a concentration camp and an extermination center—that makes Auschwitz the symbol of Nazi genocide.

The new exhibition has been enriched with artifacts obtained through many years of historical research, as well as with testimonies collected by the Museum since the late 1950s. Thanks to this, it became possible to address subjects previously absent or mentioned only briefly: for example, the prisoners’ daily experiences, their physical and psychological degradation, and the mechanisms of camp terror. Modern technological and exhibition techniques have also made it possible to present a larger number of original objects found within the camp and its surroundings—some of which are being displayed publicly for the first time.

At the heart of this narrative is the experience of a person registered in the camp. The exhibition illustrates the Nazi policy of dehumanization: stripping individuals of their identity, dignity, and in many cases, even the hope of survival. The fate of the individual—each prisoner, each inmate—becomes the central point of reference, allowing visitors to understand how the massive system of oppression operated on a single human life.

Block 8 presents the successive stages of the “encampment ritual,” the process experienced by every person deported to Auschwitz: arrival by transport, brutal registration, loss of former identity, overcrowded barracks, the system of punishments and rewards, and the organization of daily life subordinated to forced labor. This part of the exhibition also shows the development of camp infrastructure and the role of forced labor in the German war economy, particularly within enterprises cooperating with the SS.

Block 9 complements this narrative with the physical and psychological experiences of prisoners: chronic exhaustion, hunger, cold, fear, disease, nakedness and humiliation, and finally apathy and hopelessness. These factors led to the progressive destruction of the body, which often resulted in death. This section includes numerous personal testimonies of survivors, prisoner photographs taken by camp identification services, as well as post-camp objects and original drawings depicting the realities of daily life in the camp.

A special place is occupied by the so-called Memory Archive, located in the first room of Block 9. It consists of over a thousand testimonies of former prisoners—written in various languages, often shortly after liberation—as well as the earliest postwar editions of personal documents such as diaries, memoirs, and interrogation records. These sources, sometimes the first attempts to describe the tragedy of the camp, form the foundation of contemporary knowledge about Auschwitz and allow us to come closer to experiences that cannot be fully conveyed by any artifacts.

The new main exhibition has been designed with a consciously minimalist approach—both in form and narrative. Its structure relies primarily on authentic objects, documents, photographs, and witness accounts. It is these elements—rather than elaborate multimedia—that guide visitors through the experience of a person imprisoned in Auschwitz. The minimalist approach is a meaningful choice: it allows the visitor to concentrate on the real traces of history and highlights how few tangible remnants remain of the hundreds of thousands of people who passed through the camp.

The exhibition focuses on the prisoners’ daily struggle to preserve life and dignity in the face of a system that can be described as a technocratic, bureaucratic machine—a corporation of death that Auschwitz-Birkenau became. The camp functioned as a ruthless apparatus aimed at maximizing the exploitation of prisoner labor through systematic starvation, exhaustion, and violence, and— in the case of selected groups—through immediate or gradual extermination. The logic of Auschwitz was entirely subordinated to the racial ideology of National Socialism, in which human beings were judged through the lens of alleged “biological value.” This pseudo-scientific, distorted worldview legitimized mass murder, presenting it as part of a “rationally” organized state project.

The exhibition traces the collision of these two perspectives: the dehumanizing, administrative system on the one hand, and the fate of the individual— reduced to a number yet still capable of resistance, solidarity, and moments of humanity—on the other. Authentic testimonies and objects—seemingly ordinary items such as a spoon, a shoe, or a scrap of paper—become material traces of the struggle for dignity in a world built upon its denial.

The first visitors will see this new part of the exhibition today. Entering this space, where history speaks primarily through the voices of survivors and the belongings of victims, offers an opportunity for deep reflection. I hope that confronting this narrative will prompt visitors to consider the fragility of human life, the ease with which systems can impose mechanisms of exclusion and violence, and at the same time the extraordinary capacity of human beings for adaptation, determination, and the preservation of dignity even in the most inhuman conditions.

Auschwitz as a Museum

Museum exhibitions serve many purposes, but their foremost role is to communicate facts and convey the essence of the phenomena they present. Over the past twenty years, museum practice in Poland has increasingly embraced the genre of the “narrative museum,” in which historical content is presented through immersive, stage-like displays that envelop the visitor in the subject matter.

Although Auschwitz was designated a museum as early as 1947, the term was employed primarily for practical reasons—there was no more precise concept to encompass the protection, preservation, and educational mission of the site. Yet from the beginning, the documents establishing the museum emphasized that Auschwitz-Birkenau is also a cemetery. This fundamental truth is too often overlooked by contemporary visitors, some of whom approach the site with a kind of voyeuristic curiosity rather than the reverence it demands.

National Exhibitions

The idea of establishing national exhibitions at Auschwitz emerged shortly after liberation, but the first such exhibition—commemorating the citizens of Czechoslovakia—was not opened until 1960. These national displays were conceived as supplements to the permanent exhibition, designed to present the broader context of Nazi policies in occupied Europe, which led to deportations to Auschwitz.

Ironically, the first Jewish national exhibition, located in Block 27, opened in 1968—the same year as the anti-Zionist campaign across the Soviet bloc. The first Polish exhibition, housed in Block 15, was not unveiled until 1985. Entitled The Struggle and Martyrdom of the Polish Nation in the Years 1939–1945, it remained in place until 2023.

In recent years, extensive conservation work has been undertaken in Block 15 of the main Auschwitz camp. The newly unveiled exhibition, replacing the earlier display, is titled Poles in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Residents of the Oświęcim Region during the Second World War.

The New Exhibition Narrative

The new exhibition has been curated by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, long-time Director of the Research Center at the Auschwitz Museum and a prolific scholar of the camp’s history. The most difficult aspect of creating such an exhibition lies in selecting from the abundance of historical material and identifying a common denominator capable of communicating meaningfully with diverse audiences.

In contemporary museology, clarity, simplicity, chronological order, the use of authentic quotations, and a coherent narrative path have become guiding principles—the “holy grail” of exhibition design. The physical constraints of Block 15, preserved under strict conservation rules, posed challenges but also opportunities. The building itself reminds visitors of their presence within an authentic site of memory—a lieu de mémoire. Any exhibition here must respect this authenticity and avoid overshadowing it with dazzling technological effects that risk diluting the gravity of the crimes committed at Auschwitz.

The exhibition begins with a spacious section devoted to the period before 1939, illustrating the ordinariness of daily life and the sudden, catastrophic intrusion of war. Nazi rhetoric—on Lebensraum, colonization, historical rights, and conquest through both diplomacy and violence—looms ominously over this section. The curators highlight how populist lies and the radicalization of language have repeatedly paved the way for humanity’s gravest crimes.

From there, the narrative moves through successive stages of German terror: the destruction of the Polish state, the imposition of the General Government, and the brutal realities of Nazi occupation. The exhibition details the regime’s policies toward Polish Jews—300,000 of whom were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau after 1942, when the camp assumed its role as a center of industrialized mass murder.

While addressing large-scale deportations—including approximately 150,000 Polish political prisoners—the exhibition never loses sight of individual stories, names, and faces. Multimedia elements are used sparingly, with a preference for visual over textual content.

The display also incorporates sculptures of prisoners in striped uniforms, echoing the earlier Polish exhibition (1985–2023). A wide, monumental staircase, evocative of Nazi architectural style, leads to the first floor. Here, the focus shifts to German colonization plans for the town of Oświęcim, incorporated into the Third Reich and renamed Auschwitz in October 1939. At the center stands a model of the Musterstadt Auschwitz complex, complemented by original sketches by Hans Stosberg. These projects bear witness to long-term Nazi ambitions of colonizing former Polish lands. The Generalplan Ost, developed by occupation authorities, envisaged the deportation of up to 80% of ethnic Poles and their replacement with German settlers.

The final rooms explore two themes: the fate of the 8,000 local residents displaced to allow the expansion of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the assistance provided by locals to prisoners. Maps, aerial photographs, and statistics illustrate the intensity of German colonial plans. Allied reconnaissance photographs of Auschwitz from 1944 reintroduce the debated question of whether the camp could—or should—have been bombed.

Among the most poignant exhibits are works of art created by former prisoners and presented to local residents in gratitude for their assistance. One striking example is a metal-and-glass case crafted by Jan Liwacz, the same prisoner who, in 1940, was forced by the Germans to forge the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign above the camp gate.

Architecturally, the exhibition evolves into a labyrinth of cubic forms, culminating in a restrained glass sculpture. The design’s simplicity and austerity encourage contemplation and reflection.

Reflections on the Exhibition

The historical narrative is clear, well-structured, and deliberately reduced to essential themes—headlines rather than exhaustive analysis. The curators seem to have assumed that visitors, equipped with instant access to global encyclopedias via smartphones, will seek deeper knowledge independently, provided they approach sources critically.

Yet for all its clarity, the exhibition sometimes feels overly sanitized. The panels, in stark black and white, dominate the building’s interior, leaving little direct sensory connection to the authentic Auschwitz. A glance out the window, however, provides the unmediated reminder of the reality beyond the exhibition walls.

In this sense, the new Polish exhibition—by balancing interpretation with the authenticity of the site—has the potential to serve as a powerful educational tool, both for guided tours and for independent visitors.

Today marks the opening of a new national exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The previous display, dedicated to the fate of Polish prisoners, had been presented from 1985 to 2023 under the title “The Struggle and Martyrdom of the Polish Nation in the Years 1939–1945.”

Over the past two years, extensive conservation work has been carried out in Block 15 of the main Auschwitz camp. The newly unveiled exhibition is entitled “Poles in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Residents of the Oświęcim Region during the Second World War.”

The exhibition’s architectural concept is rooted in minimalism, employing black and white as the dominant palette and gradually introducing more complex spatial arrangements. Mirrors are used as a supporting medium, enhancing the sense of disorientation and reflecting the vast scale of Auschwitz. The narrative unfolds both chronologically and thematically, designed to communicate key messages to a broad audience. The visitor’s journey is structured to progressively build a sense of overwhelming terror, the enormity of the crimes, and the isolation of the individual. Reproductions of paintings by former prisoner Władysław Siwek illustrate daily life in the camp, partially compensating for the scarcity of surviving artifacts. Sculptures depicting prisoners in striped uniforms serve as a meaningful reference to the earlier Polish exhibition.

A wide, monumental staircase leading to the first floor evokes the aesthetics of Nazi architecture and introduces the section devoted to the German colonization plans for the town of Oświęcim. In October 1939, the town was incorporated into the Third Reich and renamed Auschwitz. At the center of this part of the exhibition stands a model of the Germanized Auschwitz complex, accompanied by original sketches by Hans Stosberg.

The final two rooms address the fate of several thousand local residents who were displaced to allow for the expansion of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as their involvement in efforts to aid prisoners. The architecture of the exhibition evolves into a labyrinth of cubic forms, culminating in a restrained glass sculpture. Through its simplicity and sparing use of materials, the exhibition’s design fosters contemplation and reflection on its content.

This new presentation complements the museum’s main exhibition by focusing specifically on the fate of Polish citizens in the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. It not only documents the history of political prisoners but also acknowledges other groups of Polish citizens incarcerated there—including Polish Jews, many of whom were deported to Auschwitz to be murdered in the industrialized phase of the Holocaust.

The second part of the exhibition addresses the wartime history of Oświęcim renamed into Auschwitz, encompassing the realities of occupation, forced displacement, the activities of IG Farbenindustrie, and German plans for the city’s colonization and Germanization. It also highlights the life-threatening assistance extended to Auschwitz prisoners by local inhabitants—referred to as the “People of Good Will”—who lived within the so-called camp interest zone, a 16-square-miles area isolating the camp from the outside world. The final element of the exhibition is an attempt to recreate the names and biographies of the resistance members who helped the prisoners.

The Goldbergs started in Oświęcim in the early XIX century to move to Milówka towards the end of the century and arround WW I expand into Bielsko-Biała.

Sukkah it is. I am sure that Moses Goldberg from Oświęcim who built this house in Milówka and had a hardware store equipped it with a crank mechanism to lift the roof for Sukkot. He was welcoming his guest with the Aramaic/Yiddish - ushpizin welcome to invite the 7 supernal guests "founding fathers" of the Jewish people. At the same time a word sounding like his home town of Oświęcim in yiddish. Way before it was renamed into Auschwitz by the German Nazis. Milówka becomes a tourist destination so Moses changes the house into a hotel and restaurant. It is located on the tourist trail from Milówka rail station into Hala Boracza where in 1925 the first in the world Jewish mountain shelter was built by the Makabbi movement.

The Ghost of Wadowice

The Goldberger brothers once played soccer in the cobbled market square of Wadowice, their laughter mingling with the morning bustle. We know this not from myth, but from memory—Karol Wojtyła, later known to the world as Pope John Paul II, recalled Poldek Goldberger as one of his childhood companions on the field.

Moniek, Poldek, Eduard, and Adolf—later known as Dolek, and eventually Maurice—were the sons of Maksymilian and Eleonore Goldberger. Their family home stood at Rynek 18, overlooking the square. Not far away, at Rynek 2, Karol Wojtyła and his father lived in an apartment rented from the Jewish Balamuth family. The two families likely knew each other well. After all, Max Goldberger was a dentist—just like his brother—and everyone knows their dentist.

In the 1930s, the Goldberger boys pursued studies in law and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków—the same halls where the young Wojtyła immersed himself in Polish literature and earned a reputation as a gifted actor.

Toward the end of the decade, Adolf—by then known as Maurice—married Lotta (Charlotte) Glazer, a woman from a German-Jewish family in Bielitz–Bielsko. But the shadow was already falling.

In September 1939, with the German army advancing fast, the Goldbergers fled eastward, seeking refuge in the uncertain safety of eastern Poland. Maurice took up a false identity as a physician in Sielec, a fragile disguise that could only hold for so long. In October 1942, they were arrested. By winter, they were prisoners in the newly established Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek.

They were among the first.

Charlotte became one of the first women incarcerated there. It was still a concentration camp, gradually converted into a death facility. By late 1942, Majdanek had become one of the six German Nazi death camps.

We do not know how they survived the horrors of November 3rd and 4th, 1943—the days of Operation “Harvest Festival,” when 42,000 Jews were slaughtered across the Lublin district in a single, calculated purge. We only know that they did.

Somehow, they endured. Perhaps it was Charlotte’s strict German upbringing that gave her the strength to hold her ground, speaking impeccable High German even in the camp. A Nazi once told her that she didn’t look or act like a Jew.

It is believed that they remained in Majdanek until its liberation on July 22, 1944. The next trace of their existence is a postwar registration: survivors of Lublin, living at Czwartek Street No. 4.

They spoke little of those years, as was the case for many who survived. But fragments remain.

One day, Maurice walked up a hill to the old Jewish community building—before the war, it had been the Perec House. Now, he ran a canteen for survivors there. As he approached, he saw a woman. He stopped her and asked, “Do you know who I am?”

She looked at him for a long moment, then said, “A ghost.”

In May 1945, Maurice and Charlotte left Poland behind for good, fleeing not only the ruins of war, but also the rising tide of antisemitism and Soviet oppression. They settled briefly in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria, filling out their UNRRA displaced persons cards with a stark and chilling line:

“Not back to Poland—for all my relatives there are dead.”

By the early 1950s, they had crossed the ocean. Their new address: 1702 Bathgate Avenue, Bronx, New York.

The rest, as they say, is history.

But like so many survivor stories, it was a history largely unspoken—for decades, shrouded in silence.

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News from Galicia

On 12 December 2025, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum opens the first part of its new main exhibition.

The Narrative of the New Polish Exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum

The Architecture of the New Polish Exhibition at Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.

Milówka and Bielsko-Biała Goldberg family. First Jewish mountain shelter and Sukkah in Milówka.

Moniek, Poldek, Eduard, and Adolf—later known as Dolek, and eventually Maurice—were the sons of Maksymilian and Eleonore Goldberger in Wadowice. Soccer with John Paul II.