News

Auschwitz Institute for Human Rights invited our Museum to participate in a most interesting conference in the cycle under the title “Comparative studies in Genocide”. The event, being the eighth in the series, took place between 24 and 25 October and was organized together with Department of Sociology of Warsaw University.

The leading theme of the conference read: “War – a man’s world? The role and fates of women in times of wars”. The meeting, realized in partnership with Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities  as well as with Library Book Gallery in Oświęcim, was attended by almost 100 researchers, teachers, educators and museologists from all over Poland.

Among the participants, there were also representatives of our Museum – Dr Anna Czerner and Dr Kamil Weber who delivered their paper inspired by the temporary exhibition “I love you, so long …”. The paper under the title “From Krysieńka to Krystyna. Transformation of the role of a woman under the pressure of war and captivity” opened the first session of the conference on 24 October. The aim of our researchers was to present the subject matter of captivity during World War II in the context of changes within romantic relationships of separated couples, with particular attention paid to areas in which emancipation of women ensued as a result of the enforcing situation. The transformation was illustrated with the case of one of the officer marriages – Andrzej and Krystyna Mystkowski.

The programme of the conference was rich in a great number of perspectives – the theme of women was presented with reference to the question of being both victims of wartime violence and their makers, and this in a greatly varied geographical spectrum, including such regions of the world as Rwanda, German colonies in South Africa, Armenia, the Balkans or Ukraine. A lot of space was devoted to sexual abuse and problems connected with the participation of women-soldiers in military actions. However, the most drastic examples concerned the profiles of women who – in their cruelty towards politically defined enemy – went as far as to inciting to commit genocide or to personal perpetration.

We would like to thank the organizers for the invitation and are pleased with the substantive outcomes of the event.

Photo: Auschwitz Institute for Human Rights.