This archive report was first published on 5 December 2019.
Located in southern Poland, Oswiecim is a town of 40,000 residents who are forever linked to the Holocaust, much like Hiroshima is tied to the atomic bomb.
On December 6, 2019, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will pay her first visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, bringing the town back into the spotlight.
For locals, the burden of history is a heavy one, as they try to lead normal lives despite the town's dark past.
"Visitors believe that even three generations later, we should be in mourning all day, every day," said Dawid Karlik, a 24-year-old student who lives just 200 meters from the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau gate.
As a student at the college located near the camp, Karlik is well aware of the history that surrounds him. He works at the library of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum and hopes to become a tour guide there one day.
Empty hotels ¶
Despite the expected 2.3 million visitors to the museum in 2019, Oswiecim's hotels remain empty, as tourists prefer to stay in nearby Krakow.
Efforts to revamp the town's image have been made, including the annual Life Festival Oswiecim, which was launched in 2010 by high-profile journalist Dariusz Maciborek. However, this year's edition was cancelled due to lack of funding.
Commemorating the past ¶
Oswiecim is filled with reminders of the past, including commemorative plaques and mass graves. The town's street names are also a testament to its history, with half of them connected to the camp.
"Those who live here keep the flame alive," said pensioner Jerzy Tobiasz, pointing to a couple of grave lanterns placed under a plaque commemorating the first Polish inmates shot to death on November 22, 1940.
Preserving the camp's history ¶
The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum is located on 200 hectares of land, but several of the camp's buildings are outside the museum grounds. A group of 30 volunteers from the Foundation of Memory Sites Near Auschwitz-Birkenau (FPMP) has made it their mission to collect items related to the camp to save them from oblivion.
