Historian Piotr Cywiński came to Ukraine to witness the evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, as documented by Ukrainian organizations and volunteers, as well as the testimonies of people who were direct participants in the events of occupation, war, and shelling.
(Photo: Press Service of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation)
Source: interview to NV.UA
Piotr Cywiński, a Polish historian and director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, talks about who actually liberated the Nazi concentration camp, and attempts to explain why any ideology is completely missing in the Russian army today.
NV meets with Piotr Cywiński, a well-known Polish historian and publicist, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and president of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, on the sidelines of the Forum of Oral History, which recently took place in Kyiv at the initiative and with support of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
Mr Cywiński came to Ukraine to witness how the evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine is being documented by Ukrainian organizations and volunteers, as well as to see the testimonies of people who were direct participants in the events of occupation, war, and shelling.
These testimonies not only become evidence of Russia’s crimes in international courts, but also keep the Ukrainian society’s own memory of the tragedy of the war. They allow it to be realized, comprehended, and, if possible, processed and made part of the national history and ethics.
Piotr Cywiński willingly shares with the publication his thoughts about how memory can become a hostage of propaganda, about the unlearned lessons of history, the possibilities of museification of memory, as well as about the testimonies of victims and aggressors.
— In your view, how does the history and memory of the Holocaust and the Second World War affect the ability of societies to recognize new crimes and counter them?
— If we draw a comparison between the ongoing wars and the Second World War, then, given the pain that people experienced, it will not bring us the desired effect. Every pain is unique. While the history of memory, if we take the post-war period, can give us a lot. If we take the Second World War, then, compared to many other wars, it was probably the most sacrificial from the point of view of civilians. It caused a lot of changes, which took place after its completion. In various spheres — in culture, in the political and economic sphere, in the legal and religious sphere.
After the Second World War, tremendous civilizational and social changes took place. For example, let us take the creation of the UN or the creation of the EU later, interethnic cooperation, and cooperation in the field of religion. That is, a lot of new legal and social concepts appeared. For example, the concept of genocide or crimes against humanity. And I must say that this post-war period was a kind of starting point from where it all began. When someone again begins to break the rules that were built or created in the post-war period, if this someone completely neglects the achievements of human thought, which was formulated in the post-war period, then they find themselves outside the framework of this post-war justice and normality. For me personally, if someone violates these rules that were formulated in the post-war period, for example, the rules and requirements of the UN, such a country should not be a member of this organization, in my view. Similarly, in ecumenical dialogue, there can be no church that blesses such actions of a military nature. Because the above-mentioned UN was created in the post-war period precisely in order to prevent such conflicts, and that is why such an ecumenical dialogue took place.
— I understand you are hinting at Russia. When historians talk about the transformation of Russia into its current state, they say that the communist ideology and the Soviet Union itself were not condemned at the time the way Nazism was. This did not happen in the 90s. Do you see this as a real problem and the cause of Russia’s current state?
— I think, only partially. Because Russia, by and large, consists of many elements that differ from each other. As they say, one piece, one part of it is St. Petersburg, Moscow, which have always been an example of a kind of wealth, power, actions, and system. While at the same time, small provinces or small towns have not been involved in any form of governance, as citizens. This is a completely different element of Russia. These people cannot, or do not fully realize, imagine, what it means to be a citizen. They have never travelled the world. They have not seen the world. And there is another small Russia. These are some existing small groups, groups like the Memorial (a Russian human rights organization that brought back the memory of the victims of Soviet repression), which have experience and a sense of citizenship. And all these are different Russias. Today, if we look at Russia as a state, we generally see the apparatus that operates, Putin and all the services that work, and that is all. I think that the lack of decommunization did not have a big effect on such a passive position of the rest. Rather, the lack of enlightenment, awareness, and education influenced such a passive position of people. Because no one has ever said or proved to these people, living in Russia, that they are citizens of their state. The tsar, the revolution, Stalinism, Putinism — they have passed through all these stages. And the big problem is that most people do not see themselves in the category of active citizens, but rather attribute themselves to the category of some kind of captives who, being within this system, have to deal and cope with all this in order to survive. So, condemnation would hardly work for them.
– The Russians are passive, and it is all the more interesting how Russian propaganda works with them. It is devoid of ideology, clear goals, and it does not urge for anything, unlike the propaganda of the Third Reich, for example. All these letters Z and V do not make any sense. This propaganda also keeps changing, thus, not substantiating, but rather confusing the war. What is its function in general?
– I will talk about the propaganda that is targeted at an internal audience, not propaganda that is aimed at Western countries. In my opinion, propaganda is not the main tool of the Russian authorities in relation to their citizens. Their main tool is fear. In the beginning, the letter Z was not an element of propaganda. And there were soldiers who did not have any symbols. They did not know at all what they were dying for. The Russians thought that they would win so quickly that there was no need to mentally prepare the army for combat action. And accordingly, after Kyiv stood it out, the war continued, and this letter Z began to perform the role of such a symbol purely from a tactical viewpoint. This indicates that there were no ideological preparations, preparations in terms of propaganda, because they were not supposed to be the driving force, but rather [military] order and fear were supposed to be the driving forces. And accordingly, some one-man protests were more frightful and disturbing for the Kremlin, since they indicated that a person does not agree with what is happening, does not have fear. And that is what raised fear in them. Consequently, what is behind this? Since the war continues, the idea ceases to be a driving force, and here the fear of the system and the fear of being killed are in the balance. And this is a very shaky position. I probably do not remember any war during the last decades where the army would be unprepared from the ideological viewpoint. If we take the terrible conflict between Israel and Hamas, from both sides we can see communities that are ideologically cohesive, making a single whole. The strength of Ukraine lies in cohesion because the entire Ukraine knows what it is fighting for. And on the other side there is the Russian army, which absolutely does not know what it is doing here. And this is very visible in the Western media. The message from Ukraine is read and perceived by Western societies unambiguously and clearly, while Russian messages are very vague, unclear, and have no focus.
— To what extent has Russia privatized the memory of the Second World War and the memory of the winner today? For example, we see how difficult it has been for German politicians now to condemn Russia, which defeated Nazism. Perhaps this is the case in other countries too. Is it possible to deconstruct this memory of the Second World War, where Russia is the “only winner” over Nazism?
— I think that this is a rather internal construct, rather Russia’s perception of itself as the only winner. Americans have a completely different perception of these events. It is rather an image of a Red Army soldier who won, which the Russians are trying to impose on everyone in Europe. But much more in Russia itself. They are trying to focus on this in view of their internal needs. If we take history lessons somewhere in the West, then no one would probably remember the Battle of Kursk. And as for the St. George ribbon, it absolutely did not catch on in the West. That is, no one adopted it.
The message from Ukraine is read and perceived by Western societies unambiguously and clearly, while Russian messages are very vague, unclear, and have no focus.
— So Russia failed to sell this construct to Europeans despite the Monuments to the Soviet Soldier in Vienna or Berlin, which were interpreted as Monuments to the Russian soldier?
— Maybe it does try to sell it, but no one buys it. Instead, this ideology of a single winner is very strong and effective inside the country.
Today, Russia is really trying to position itself as the sole heir to the victories of the Soviet Union. And when I hear somebody saying that it was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz, I say, “No, stop.” Those were not the Russians. They were the Red Army soldiers. Specifically, those were the soldiers of two divisions of the so-called Ukrainian Front. Just a few years ago, a document was published detailing the composition of this 50th or 60th Army of the Ukrainian Front. All the friendly peoples of the Soviet Union were represented there. There were even some Poles there. There were almost 41% of Russians and almost 40% of Ukrainians there.
— Let us go back to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, which collected a lot of evidence of the Holocaust, and turned it into powerful exhibits that can change people’s mindsets. What are the main features of such a powerful memory museum worth echoing by Ukraine?
— First of all, for people who visit the museum, it is very important and very impactful that this is an authentic, real place. Because people come to the place where everything actually happened. The second element is the objects, items that have been collected in the museum. Because, for example, you can say in words that 220,000 children died in Auschwitz, but if a visitor of the museum sees a children’s shoe before his or her eyes, their emotions will be much deeper. And the third element is very important: these are the stories of people who survived Auschwitz. I must say that most of these stories were recorded/documented almost immediately after the end of the war. First of all, this was done in order to use the collected material in court trials, so that the one who saw it could act as a witness. These were the stories of only those people who wanted to share information, as there were also those who were silent, who did not want to share anything.
— How important is it to collect the full narrative reality of the war? Not only the voices of the victims, but also the voices of the aggressors?
— You are talking about a fundamental approach. Not always everyone understands the relevance of this, because it is subconscious. We always want to hear only the voice of the victim. But sooner or later, questions arise as to what caused this evil to emerge, what was the mechanism of this evil’s birth and formation. In order to understand this mechanism, for example, how a young guy from Buryatia, who has not seen much of the world, comes to some Ukrainian village, receives an order to “do what you want”, and begins to rape women and children. If he had come to the same village four years earlier as a tourist, and he had been told, for example, “do what you want”, he probably would not have had such thoughts and such desires.
If we analyse a small amount of evidence or testimonies from these perpetrators, it will be difficult for us to understand the mechanism, what they were driven by in their actions. But this understanding is crucial.
We in Auschwitz have thousands of testimonies of victims, but there are only a few testimonies from Auschwitz staff. That is why it is very difficult to explain today what caused these people to join the SS. Ultimately, the question relates not so much to the victims, but rather to the executioner: why such level of cruelty was applied? There was a victim, who was innocent, and was killed. But the anthropological conundrum is on the other side. Regardless of the fact that, being driven by empathy, we all take the side of the victims, it is very important to collect the testimonies of Russian prisoners. Because we need to understand the mechanism of evil.
— The Second World War gave us the terms genocide and crimes against humanity. In your opinion, what new definitions will Russia’s war in Ukraine bring us? Is this a genocidal war?
— I suppose that the terminology that exists is quite sufficient, and there is no need for new terms or definitions. As for genocide, it is rather a sphere of a legal nature. Because today politicians and journalists talk about this topic, but I think that lawyers should deal with the determination of its nature. This is what the Hague Tribunal is doing, and I believe it will happen. If I were a lawyer and saw what the Russian army did in Bucha, or elsewhere, then for me these are definitely war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the moment, this is not enough to enable us to talk about genocide. But when I combine this with what politicians in the Kremlin say: that Ukraine, as a state, does not exist, Ukrainians are not a people, not a nation, if we combine narratives in the Kremlin with what is happening, then this gives us ground and may be indicative of genocide. Because there was an order from above, and we see what results it led to on the ground.
If we see the possibility of a holistic planned action, then we need to clearly analyse what the politicians, like Lavrov, said, what the spokesmen said, what news analysts on Russian television said, what Putin said, and how this was reflected in the actions directly at the front. That is, then we can assume that these are signs of genocide. If not, we will remain within the frames of war crimes for which commanders and their subordinates are responsible.
— Historical memory, which connects Ukraine and Poland, has both many unifying and disconnecting elements. How can we reduce the latter, as well as the emotional burden of what separates us?
— Only through meetings, conversations, the desire to understand each other can we reduce this tension. Today, Russia is trying to cause a quarrel between Poland and Ukraine, and we should not buy into these provocations.
I will tell you a joke. Professor Israel Gutman, unfortunately, he died, but he was a prisoner of Auschwitz back then. He studied Jewish history in Poland and lived in Poland. Once he took part in a conference in Germany: the second, third question, and then suddenly a student stands up and asks, “How do you, Jews, exist in Poland, while Poland is famous for its anti-Semitism?” To which Israel Gutman replied, “Both Poles and Jews, we are all aware that difficulties exist. But you here, at the university in Germany, are the last ones who have the right to ask us about it.” I think it is also important for our peoples to remember this when someone tries to put them against each other.
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