Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for your e-mail. For us, this case is also difficult and extremely painful. Putting aside the legal aspects, we are faced with a conflict between natural and understandable emotions of the individual, and a complex unity, whose primary and universal goal is to preserve collective memory of the European Jewry’s tragedy through education and material testimony. The lawsuit, which we did not want, is now in progress.
In response to your questions we would like to provide you with a statement of the Museum’s standpoint.
In the autumn of 2003, a representative of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC), Paris, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim. During this visit, for the first time, he made the request to borrow an exhibit for a planned permanent exhibition in Paris entitled “The Fate of Jews from France during World War II”. The exhibit he asked for was a suitcase that had come from among the transports deported to KL Auschwitz from the occupied French territories.
The suitcases of those deported to Auschwitz which are today in the possession of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum are among the most valuable exhibit-relics of its collections. They constitute a small remnant of the personal effects left behind by the victims of the KL Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers which the Nazis did not have time to recycle for their own purposes in the Reich. The names appearing on some of the suitcases are, at the same time, one of the few proofs of the death of individual people in KL Auschwitz. In the Museum’s collections there are just a handful of suitcases, whose characteristics, such as inscriptions on them or attached labels, indicate that they were brought to Auschwitz by deportees from France. For this reason, the Museum initially rejected the above-mentioned request, and offered a photograph of such a suitcase instead. The French party was not satisfied with such a solution and continued asking for an original suitcase, declaring at the same time that it would be borrowed from the Museum only for the period of the exhibition opening, i.e. the first half of 2005.
Considering the fact that one of the basic tasks of the Museum is to spread knowledge of KL Auschwitz, as well as the fact that the opening of the exhibition in Paris coincided with the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and that the exhibition was to be presented in the capital of France, the Museum decided to change its initial decision.
In the second half of 2004, the Museum chose a suitcase for the purpose. This was inventory number PMO- II-1-1786. It carried a paper label bearing the following inscription: “Boul. Villette, Paris” (typewritten), “Pierre Levy”, “48 Gruppe 10” [?] (handwritten, barely legible). The suitcase was then subjected to conservation, and the necessary formalities for the loan were prepared. Signing of the Loan/Borrowing contract and the physical taking possession of the exhibit by the French party took place in January 2005. The contract stated that by the end of June 2005 the suitcase would be returned to the Museum in Oświęcim.
At the end of May 2005, the French party informed the Museum that a person claiming to be the son of the original owner of the suitcase had been in touch with their institution. In order to respect the feelings of this relative of a victim of KL Auschwitz, the CDJC therefore asked for a change to be made to the contract such that the suitcase could remain in Paris for a “long-term” period. In making this request the CDJC told the Museum that if the Museum would agree to this it would help them to “persuade the family into not demanding its [the suitcase’s] restitution”.
The Museum raised the matter at the meeting of the International Auschwitz Council on June 21, 2005. The members of the Council, consisting of 25 experts from many countries around the world (among others, from Yad Vashem), expressed numerous doubts about CDJC’s request and expressed the view that the suitcase should be returned forthwith to the Museum. However, at the request of the French member of the Council, it was finally agreed that a temporary extension of the contract should be made. In its reply to the CDJC, the Museum thus declared that for the sake of maintaining good mutual relations, and to avoid any sense of bitterness, it was willing to extend the deadline for returning the suitcase until January 2006, stressing that this was the final date for the return of the loan. The Museum also asked for the address of the victim’s relative in order to establish contact with that person and to explain the role of the exhibits and collections of the Museum in its educational mission about Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
Unfortunately the Museum has never received the address, nor has this relative at any time contacted the Museum. It has therefore not been possible to engage in a dialogue about this matter. The Museum has had experience in the past of claims made by former prisoners or relatives of victims to claim ownership of objects from its collections, and in such cases – by clarifying the purpose of the Museum and its collections -- it has always succeeded in negotiating with such people and dissuading them from pursuing such claims.
At the end of December 2005, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was informed by the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris about a decision that had been taken allowing a distraint to be made on the suitcase-exhibit being displayed at the exhibition organised by the Memorial de la Shoah (Shoah Memorial) in Paris. The proposer of this distraint was Mr. Michel Georges Adam Levi-Leleu, residing in Paris, the son of Pierre Levi, whose name corresponds with the one inscribed on the suitcase’s label. Shortly afterwards, the Museum received a summons from a court in France, where Mr. Michel Georges Adam Levi-Leleu claimed the right to the suitcase. He did so regardless of the letter in which the Museum had explained its opinion and had stressed the utmost importance of the integrity of its collections and of the authenticity of the site of the former KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. A similar letter was written to Mme Simone Veil by Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski, a former prisoner of KL Auschwitz, co-founder of the Council for Aid to Jews (“Żegota”), former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Citizen of Honour in Israel, and the Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council. At present, the case is in progress, and is due to be held in September this year.
The Museum has been considering its position and has taken advice from the International Auschwitz Council and its Board, the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. se In any case, as time goes by, the memory of what happened at Auschwitz and the educational activity promoted by the Museum will increasingly rest on what physically remains of the camp, as well as the grounds on which it stands. The plunder was originally made in criminal fashion by the Nazis: every object had its owner before the war. But in terms of preserving memory and promoting education, dispersing these physical remnants today is a road to nowhere. The Museum believes that such difficult questions should be the subject of negotiations and dialogue; it is neither appropriate not productive to settle such matters through the courts. In this particular case, the claimant has not so far demonstrated any interest in dialogue, and for the first time in the Museum’s history, we have been sued. We are afraid that, whatever the outcome, the unfortunate but inevitable consequence of this case may be the tightening of restrictions on the Museum’s willingness to lend objects at all, anywhere, to the detriment of Holocaust education worldwide.
Yours sincerely,
Teresa Świebocka
Deputy Director of
State Museum Auschwitz - Birkenau
in Oświęcim POLAND
