Remembrance Museum of Land of Oświęcim Residents

When the Germans created the Zone of Interest around the camp, more than ten thousand people were removed from the area. Those who stayed found themselves in an impossible position. They lived next to the camp, worked in its hinterland and passed columns of prisoners marched to work every day. They saw everything, and any impulse to help put a whole family at risk of death.

They helped even so, and not one by one but through an organised network. They left food along the routes the work detachments marched, smuggled medicine and vaccines into the camp hospital, carried prisoners' messages and letters out, passed information to the resistance, hid escapers and helped them get out of the region. The museum has documented almost two thousand names of people involved in that help.

The permanent exhibition, opened in 2022, occupies three floors of the building and is built around witness accounts shown on large screens. Outside runs an educational path with eight cast figures of children, each with the story of a child who helped prisoners. The collection holds the Righteous Among the Nations medal awarded to the Wrona family from Nowa Wies for hiding two escaped prisoners, a very rare exhibit, because such medals usually stay in the family.

The museum also runs its own sessions for groups: workshops and museum lessons built on witness accounts, archival documents and work with sources, and for younger groups a field game around the building. Any of them can be added to any of our programmes.