In Oświęcim and Brzezinka (Poland).
It is a former prisoner barracks to which access is normally prohibited to visitors, inside the Auschwitz I camp. In a controlled atmosphere and under the cold light of neon lights, white, glass shelves extend as far as the eye can see. seen in a long corridor. Their stacked drawers are identified by codes starting with PMO-II, followed by a four-digit number. Each of them contains the same type of object: a suitcase that an inmate was forced to abandon upon his arrival in this Nazi concentration and extermination camp where 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered between 1940 and 1945.
Auschwitz contains around a thousand. Arranged in a large pile behind a glass case in the permanent exhibition – just like the shoes, the empty Zyklon B cartridges and even human hair – they constitute one of the striking elements of the museology of Auschwitz-Birkenau. “We cannot prevent degradation, only slow it”recalls Łukasz Janiga, from the collections department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau National Museum, polo shirt and black jeans, fully tattooed arm.
Contrary to what one might think, many of these suitcases are not made of leather, but of cardboard, a material which tends to be damaged easily. “In addition, during the communist period, we tried to stabilize them with varnishes which shine and age very poorly, becoming yellow or brown”explains Christin Rosse from the conservation department, long brown hair and floral print skirt. To limit the damage, an invisible structure was also created to support the “pile” of suitcases from the permanent exhibition.
Constrained to innovation
Preserving shoes represents another challenge, as they often combine several materials that age differently: the rust of a metal buckle can damage the fabric or leather. “To mend them, we use (very discreet) things like transparent nylon thread with extremely fine needles, normally used in eye surgery”continues Christin Rosse. But the objects that give him the most cold sweats are those made with plastics from the 1930s and 1940s, very unsustainable materials – for example hairbrushes.
Funding for the museum, long fragile, is now secure.
The numerous paper documents found at Auschwitz – from the paperwork that the SS failed to destroy to the letters and drawings, official or clandestine, of the deportees – also suffered from unsuitable conservation techniques, when Poland found itself in dire straits. other side of the Iron Curtain. Adhesive tape was used to glue the torn pieces with questionable laminations back together.
Current employees in the preservation department sometimes bang their heads against the walls, especially since some letters are particularly fragile – for example those written on cigarette paper. To combat yellowing, we now opt for chemical deacidification treatments. And instead of adhesive, we prefer an expensive Japanese textile based on cornstarch, which sticks and peels off without damaging.
As for hair, it represented a complex ethical dilemma to resolve. Some Jewish organizations demanded that these be buried, in accordance with Hebrew tradition. Other deportees then pointed out that, all of the detainees having been forcibly shorn when they arrived in the camp – and this “raw material” sometimes used by the Nazis to make textiles – this hair could include that of non-Jews and should therefore not be buried according to this rite. The museum ultimately decided to leave the hair behind the display cases, but refrain from processing it so that, so to speak, it would disappear when its time came. Neither before nor after.
In Birkenau, preserve the sites of extermination
As the Red Army closed in on the camp in July 1944, the SS, on Himmler’s orders, did their best to dismantle the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) facilities in order to cover up their crimes. Of these burned or dynamited buildings, notably the gas chambers where the majority of the 1.1 million victims (including 90% Jews) of the camp were killed, there remains, at best, only ruins. However, the passage of time constitutes a test for these collapsed vestiges of the genocide, which risk disappearing if nothing is done.
“The weight of the ground put pressure on the ruins of the gas chambers, explains Paweł Sawicki, press officer of the Auschwitz-Birkenau National Museum. Invisible structures were installed underground to support them and hundreds of cement microbeads were injected into the ground. We also apply traiments to prevent (fungus or moss) from developing there.”
The barracks at Auschwitz II Birkenau, where the deportees were housed, combined brick structures and “prefabricated” wooden buildings, the latter deemed by the SS to be less expensive and easier to deploy. The process of rehabilitating these barracks is very slow and expensive: changing the roofs, renovating the floor, consolidating the foundations, reinforcing the wooden structures with metal parts, etc.
Funding for the museum, long fragile, is now secure, in addition to entry tickets and Polish grants, via a “perpetual fund” worth around 180 million euros, managed by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and abounded by forty countries. All conservation activities represent 5 to 6 million euros of expenditure per year. But despite these efforts, there will inevitably come a day when these vestiges will return to dust.
Source: www.slate.fr
