UN Secretary General at the Auschwitz Memorial
Monday, 18 november 2013 (retrieved from https://en.auschwitz.org/m/)

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, visited the Auschwitz Memorial Site and Museum on November 18. The visit, above all, paid tribute to victims of the camp but also emphasized the importance of the UN work for tolerance, peace and genocide prevention. During the visit the access of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Memorial — at the invitation of the UN — to the United Nations Academic Impact was announced.

While the visit, the Secretary-General and his spouse were accompanied by, among others, two Holocaust survivors: Rabbi Israel Lau and Marian Turski, as well as the Minister in the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, Jaromir Sokołowski and the Museum Director, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.

Ban Ki-moon visited a part of the Museum exhibition. He saw block 4, dedicated to the extermination of Jews, block 5, which brought together some of the items robbed from the victims, as well as the crematorium and gas chamber in Auschwitz I. In front of the the Death Wall in the courtyard of block 11, the guest lit a candle and laid a wreath paying tribute to the victims. 

In block 27, where in June 2013 a new national exhibition entitled “Shoah” was opened, the UN Secretary-General saw, among others, a room with a book of names in which all the names of the victims of the Holocaust are gathered. 

In the second part of the visit, Ban Ki-moon visited the site of the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, including the unloading ramp where the Nazi Germans carried out the selections of the Jews deported to the camp, as well as the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium II. With a spouse, he lit a candle and placed a bouquet of white roses at the monument commemorating the victims of the camp.  

In the so-called Sauna building, in the hall where the private pre-war photographs of the Jews murdered in Auschwitz are presented, Ban Ki-moon signed the Museum guestbook and in a few words summed up the visit.

"Auschwitz-Birkenau is not a register of atrocities. It is also a repository of currage and hope. Today I say lound and clear: never again", said Ban Ki-Moon. "Yet in this haunting silence, we see the remnants of human life, we hear the cry of history and humanity. And through all of this, it becomes ever more clear that every life is precious. Every person matters. For all the victims, let us affirm that we will never forget.For our shared future, let us embrace our common duty as members of the human family to build a world of peace, justice and human dignity for all," — he added.
 
In the same place, the Auschwitz Memorial Director, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, announced that — at the invitation of the UN — the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Museum joined the United Nations Academic Impact, as the first institution of such kind in the world.

“Remembrance makes us better or wiser. The remembrance makes us more responsible, in every sense of this word. Today, memory and education become the pillars of the tomorrow’s hope,” said director Cywiński.

The United Nations Academic Impact is a worldwide initiative of the UN which was created exactly three years ago, on 18 November, 2010 — on the initiative of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. Universities and higher education institutions are members of this Organization of which goal is to promote the realization of aims and the UN mandate as a part of the actions and researches in the intellectual community culture of social responsibility.

“The Holocaust is not only the Jewish issue and Auschwitz is not only the Polish, the Jewish or the Roma issue. It is an European issue, more – it is a mankind and entire humanity issue” – said Marian Turski, an Auschwitz survivor who is also a member of the International Auschwitz Council. “Sometimes I am asked what message would I like to deliver, as a survivor of Auschwitz if I could put in one word. I would say: empathy,” he added.