Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away.

At the Royal Ontario Museum

Auschwitz. The name is scorched across time and memory, a byword for fathomless horror, unimaginable to all except those who experienced it. And now the subject of an essential, deeply moving exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, on view until September 1, 2025.

Auschwitz was created by Nazi Germany, and, as noted on the ROM’s website, “…was not a single entity. It gradually became a system of camps that combined two functions: a concentration camp and a killing centre in which some 1 million Jews — and tens of thousands of others, including Poles, Romani people, and Soviet POWs — were detained and murdered in a systematic and industrialized fashion.” Amongst the others, I will add, were those deemed to be “homosexuals.”

Twenty years ago I visited the actual site, now the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, near Oświęcim, Poland. Two decades before that, I had been to the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum, and, farther back in time, to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. But nothing prepared me what I was confronted with at Auschwitz. It actually took many years to process it, part of that journey including composing a poem cycle, begun after I started writing poetry in 2017. Consequently, when I learned about the exhibit coming to the ROM it became a must-see.

Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away. is the first travelling exhibit on this topic. It was created by Musealia, a Spanish company that specializes in mounting exhibitions that travel around the world, and co-produced with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Development was by an international panel of curators and historians headed by Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt of the University of Waterloo. Dr. van Pelt is a professor in the School of Architecture, and is “renowned for his research into the architecture and design of the Nazi concentration camps and gas chambers” (ref: University of Waterloo website). Amongst his accomplishments is being the key expert witness at the libel trial involving British Holocaust denier David Irving. The exhibit was first mounted in Madrid in 2017, and since has made stops in New York; Kansas City; the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley California; Malmo, Sweden; and Boston before coming to Toronto, its only Canadian destination.

A catalogue is available, produced originally in conjunction with the stay in New York City at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and edited by Dr. van Pelt with Luis Ferreiro (Director of Musealia) and Miriam Greenbaum (Canadian historian and Dr. van Pelt’s partner) . It illustrates some 280 objects and images. For reference, there are approximately 500 at the ROM exhibit; and a few of those in the book are not in Toronto. However, it represents the exhibition very well, and is a first-class one volume history of the general topic.

In contrast to the sheer immensity that often envelops you at Auschwitz-Birkenau itself, Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away draws the viewer into the particular, the individual, while being at the same time quite comprehensive. The focus of course, is on the Jewish community, but not forgotten are other groups, including the Romani, Poles, Soviet Prisoners of War and those the Nazis classified as “homosexuals.” For me, personally, seeing the inclusion of the last category was emotional, as people like me (transgender women) were included in that cohort.

There are three sections in the exhibit. The first is Before Auschwitz, which both lays out the pre-war cultures and lives that the Nazis targeted for obliteration, and traces the steps by which Nazi Germany proceeded from its origins to mass genocide and the establishment of concentration and death camps, particularly at Auschwitz. In so doing, very disturbing resonances with the situation today in too many places are raised. The second section is entitled simply Auschwitz, and deals with the camp itself, from arrival, to mass murder in the gas chambers and crematoria, and by other means, and the experience of those designated for slave labour. The final part is After Auschwitz, covering the aftermath, closing thoughts from the survivors and a look back at home movies of a few of the victims.

Information is clearly imparted, centring around the artifacts, ranging from the Commandant’s desk to prisoner uniforms to a crematorium oven door to a women’s red shoe at the exhibit entrance and much more. All of these are interrogated, connecting the viewer to the humanity of the victims and the horror they endured. There are also, crucially, video excerpts, in consumable portions of a few minutes each, tied to the topic of the area in which they are found. Many are survivor testimonies, but there is historical footage as well, of pre-war Jewish life for example, and, in one instance, of actual executions.

There are also a considerable number of art works, which add priceless visual witness. Many are reproductions of works that could not travel to Toronto, but there are originals, including two (done with ink and gouache on paper in a somewhat impressionistic style) on loan from the Montreal Holocaust Museum, by the Polish artist Józef Charyton. During World War II he lived next to the Jewish ghetto in Wysokie Litewskie. Montreal Holocaust Museum, by the Polish artist Józef Charyton. During World War II he lived next to the Jewish ghetto in Wysokie Litewskie. “From the windows of the house he watched the enormous tragedy every day, daily executions, the deaths of people he knew and loved. Charyton decided that if he managed to survive he had to preserve the testimony of the truth about the Holocaust.” (Józef Charyton – Biografia – Stowarzyszenie Bioregion)

The top piece illustrated shows executions in progress, while the bottom one depicts a mass grave.

David Olère was born in 1902 in Warsaw to French parents. By early 1943 he was living near Paris, and was arrested during a roundup of Jews. He was shipped first to the Drancy internment camp and then on to Auschwitz. Once there he was assigned to the Sonderkommandos, prisoners who were forced to work in the crematoria complexes, unloading bodies from the gas chambers and into the ovens. Few survived the war but Olère was one of them, and subsequently used his artistic talents to provide a witness to the atrocities he saw and endured. He is well represented here via a number of reproductions of precise, evocative drawings documenting his memories; the least horrific is one entitled Bunker 2, 1945.

Olère also contributes one of the most powerful pieces in the exhibit, an oil on hardboard entitled Freedom begins at the top of the chimneys. There are a number of elements, including:
· The right side is dominated by a sinister Nazi officer posing with a rifle
· Between his legs is a canister labelled Giftgas—Poison Gas
· To his right is a large bonfire consuming a Torah scroll, a Christian Bible, a few other objects; and a toddler
· In the background behind a barbed-wire fence is a crematorium with flames roaring out of the chimney
· In front of the crematorium are SS personnel responsible for murdering those in the gas chamber, and the vehicle they travelled around in, with Red Cross markings
· At the top left, in the chimney flames, is the mocking slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (Work makes you free), that, infamously, is shown in a metallic arch over Auschwitz’s main entrance gate.
Finally, swirling above the crematorium roof, the faces/spirits of a few of the murdered appear, linking, with blistering irony, the Arbeit Macht Frei slogan with the title of the painting

One of the most moving artifacts for me was a simple one, a little boy’s shoe with a sock tucked into it, left behind by one of those slaughtered in the gas chambers. I could imagine him trying to be a good boy, and tucking the sock in like he had been told to do, before being herded to his death. It also brought back one of the strongest memories from my visit to Auschwitz, the suitcase of a murdered two year old boy named Petr, which later motivated me to write a poem entitled Petr’s Suitcase. Many of the questions and sentiments in that piece for me also apply to the owner of this shoe and sock, a few of which are excerpted below:

…
Who were you?
Born in the midst of war,
hope and life breaking through
death and despair
a family favourite one would think,
…
No doubt you learned “No”
and, most especially, “Why?”,
a child of violence and deprivation,
turning an ingenuous, immaculate
gaze on the world’s madness and agony
even as its deadly currents
flung you here.
…
Forever just two years old,
what might you have become?
This world will never know,
but you entrusted us with
your fleeting journey that
…
…quietly beseeches
those passing by.
…

These few examples only scratch the surface, but hopefully provide a sense of the whole. In sum, Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away. is difficult, emotional viewing, but extremely well done, a dire warning and absolutely essential. If you can, please go see it; or, if not, consider buying the book. But let the final word go to one of the survivors, Charlotte Delbo. This excerpt from her poem, A Prayer to the Living to Forgive Them for Being Alive is the last item you see as you leave the exhibition:

You who are passing by
I beg you
do something
learn a dance step
something to justify your existence
something that gives you the right
to be dressed in your skin in your body hair
learn to walk and to laugh
because it would be too senseless
after all
for so many to have died
while you live
doing nothing with your life.

Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer from London, Ontario, Canada.  Her first poetry chapbook was A Song of Milestones (Harmonia Press).  Her first full-size collection was Hear Through the Silence (Cyberwit).  Her newest collection is Emergence (Wet Ink Books).  She has also published poetry, reviews and essays in numerous journals and anthologies.  Website:  https://jenniferwennpoet.wixsite.com/home

All images courtesy of the author.