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Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, at a press conference in Oswiecim, Poland, January 26, 2020. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images/ via JTA/ SUE)
JTA As the head of Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Piotr Cywiński and his staff rarely intervene in matters that don’t concern their imposing institution.
They even sit out debates that do concern them, such as Poland’s controversial outlawing in 2018 of rhetoric that blames the country for Nazi crimes.
But Cywiński decided to speak out this week about the controversy surrounding Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to appoint as its head Effi Eitam, a hawkish retired general and politician who, a growing number of critics say, has used racist rhetoric against Arab Israelis and Palestinians.
December 18, 2020 11:37 am Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, at a press conference in Oswiecim, Poland, Jan. 26, 2020. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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(JTA) As the head of Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, Piotr Cywiński and his staff rarely intervene in matters that don’t concern their imposing institution.
They even sit out debates that do concern them, such as Poland’s controversial outlawing in 2018 of rhetoric that blames the country for Nazi crimes.
“I am concerned about the future of this institution,” Cywiński told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Yad Vashem in a telephone interview last week.