Project information

Resolution on the renewal

In July 2009, in a move to implement Item 17 “Responsibility towards the victims of National Socialism” of the chapter “Art and Culture” of its governmental program, the Austrian Federal Government passed a resolution to renew the Austrian memorial at the former concentration and extermination camp and present-day State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. The National Fund was entrusted with the planning and implementation of the entire project.

For years, people in Austria had been calling for the 1978 exhibition to be renewed in keeping with the latest findings on an appropriate culture of remembrance. The main body of criticism came from Austrian visitors to the National exhibition, but the Austrian Consulate General in Krakow also received complaints from abroad.

Above all, the main premise propagated by the exhibition “11 March 1938. Austria – First Victim of National Socialism”, which also glossed over the question of collaboration, no longer conformed with Austria’s official stance following Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky’s 1991 avowal of “shared responsibility for the suffering that, although not inflicted by Austria as a nation, was indeed inflicted on other people and peoples by citizens of this country”.

Other countries and institutions also needed to adapt their national exhibitions to portray a view of history that was in keeping with the latest research. Over the last few years, Russia, Israel (Yad Vashem), Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have all renewed their exhibitions in the former inmate barracks. The museum itself is also currently working on a new permanent exhibition.

In the Year of Remembrance 2005, as a temporary solution a notice funded by the National Fund and worded in consensus with the Foreign Ministry was put up in the foyer of the Austrian exhibition. In January 2012, the text was updated to provide information on the ongoing renewal process.

The project

The National Fund was responsible for contracting the necessary services for all aspects of the renewal. It reached its decisions in consultation with the project’s Steering Committee. In addition to companion projects such as the development of an exhibition website and the publication of a book documenting the previous exhibition, its main tasks were to oversee the development of the new exhibition and the renovation of the former inmate barracks of Block 17 in which the exhibition will be housed.

Besides the funding and coordination provided by the National Fund, a series of public institutions also contributed financial and administrative support to the renewal project: the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria, the National Fund, the Federal Changellery, Federal Ministry of European and International Affairs the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, the Concentration Camp Memorial Mauthausen (previously the Federal Ministry of the Interior), the federal provinces and the Austrian Castle and Fortress Authority.

In order to ensure that the new exhibition is of an high scientific standard and to safeguard the interests of the social and political groups affected, the project was supervised by an Academic Advisory Board and a Societal Advisory Board.

More information on the organisational aspects of the project.