ABSTRACT
In 1947 the Polish Communist Government created the Auschwitz State Museum (ASM). e ASM’s enabling legislation declared that the site would predominantly commemorate the ‘martyrdom’ of the Polish nation and its people (Dwork and Van Pelt 1996: 364). Its mandate cast, the ASM would be a stark reminder of the inherent dangers of fascism, and as Cole (1999: 99) observes ‘a comforting reminder of the “liberating” presence of the Soviet Union’. In devising its exhibitions the ASM merged and blurred the history of both camps, enabling Auschwitz to assume Birkenau’s identity as a place of absolute destruction. While many Poles were murdered at the camps, this fact was exaggerated by rhetoric and illconceived research, including the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission’s death toll of four million people (Van Alstine 1996). At the ASM the histories of many communities imprisoned or executed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, especially Jews, were either not presented or marginalised.
