A HOUSE TO LIVE
A PLACE TO LEARN

Within the grounds of the International Youth Meeting Centre in the Polish town of Oswiecim/Auschwitz, the square in front of the Gerhard Richter Exhibition Pavilion has been named after the Auschwitz survivor and president of the International Auschwitz Committee, Marian Turski. He died on 18 February 2025 at the age of 98. Marian Turski, was a Jewish-Polish witness of the Shoah whose voice resonated around the world. As a man of great standing and an international authority, he gave one of the key commemorative speeches at the Auschwitz Memorial just a few weeks before his death. His speech marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 2025 and greeted heads of state and guests from all over the world on behalf of the survivors as follows:

‘We, the survivors, were always a tiny minority. There were very few of us who survived the selections back then. And those of us were able to experience freedom once again were really only a handful. And now only very few of us are left.’ He continued, saying: ‘And that’s why I think that in these minutes we have to remember the vast majority, the millions of victims who will never tell us what they experienced and felt, because they were annihilated.’ 

In front of the guests gathered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and before the eyes of the world, Marian Turski then formulated the words that have become one of his most important messages: ‘Throughout the 2,000 years that our civilisation has existed, we have been accompanied by the four horsemen of the apocalypse, war, pestilence, hunger and death. People become overwhelmed by fear, they feel paralysed, completely helpless. What should we do?  At this point, I would like to quote a sentence written by Rabbi Nachman from Bratslav. He died in 1810 in Uman, Ukraine, and it was his wish to be buried among the graves of the victims of a pogrom. The rabbi said: “The whole world is like a very narrow bridge − but the most important thing is not to be afraid!”’

‘Not to be afraid’ – this is Marian Turski’s lasting legacy, which always stood and now still stands above the naming of this place and the memory of him.

The artist Gerhard Richter welcomed the naming of the square: ‘When I met Marian Turski, I was particularly touched by the way he saw, read and understood my Birkenau paintings. He also told me how much it meant to him, that my pictures would draw attention not only to the photographs taken secretly by Alberto Errera in Birkenau, but also to the incredible courage of this man and his fellow prisoners. And he was pleased that all these pictures would soon be on display in an exhibition in Oswiecim/Auschwitz. My wife and I are very happy that this collaboration with Marian Turski and Christoph Heubner has resulted in the Gerhard Richter exhibition pavilion and that the square in front of the exhibition centre will now be named in memory of the wonderful man, Marian Turski: Against forgetting and in the hope that people can learn from history after all!’

In the presence of numerous guests from Poland and Germany, the name plaque was unveiled by Marian Turski’s daughter, Joanna Turska, and the Mayor of Oswiecim, Janusz Chwierut. Unfortunately, the ceremony was overshadowed by a regrettable incident, when anti-Semitic abuse was shouted at the assembled guests from a passing car. Marian Turski Square in front of the Gerhard Richter Exhibition Centre in Oswiecim is the first memorial to be dedicated to Marian Turski in his Polish homeland and in the world.