Led by: Paulina Małochleb

“Rudolf Hӧss, the commander of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, returning to the Catholic Church, repentant, going to confession, and taking Holy Communion in a prison cell in Wadowice is not likely but for sure going to be saved. If the Christian ideals make any sense, if God is indeed merciful and does not reject anyone but loves all people limitlessly, Hӧss needs to be saved. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus cleansed every human being (also Hӧss) from their sins and opened their way to being saved. Without a converted (?) and saved Hӧss, Christianity falls apart.

On the scales held by Jesus, one converted (?) Rudolf Hӧss is more important than one million and one hundred thousand people that were murdered under his supervision. If someone is against accepting such logic of mercy, if someone has doubts, and if anything makes him/her unable to accept this Mystery – they are not a good Christian. You cannot be a “bit” of a Christian. You either are, or you’re not”. – Jacek Leociak

Jacek Leociak (b. 1957) – professor, head of the Center for Research on the Literature of the Shoah at the PAN Institute of Literary Research, member and co-founder of the Center for Research on the Shoah at the PAN Philosophy and Sociology Institute, editor of a yearly magazine “The Shoah. Studies and Sources.” He published numerous books, among them: “About Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto”, “The Warsaw Ghetto. A Guide Through a Non-Existing City”,’ “God’s Mills. About the Church and the Shoah” (nominated to the Nike Literary Award), “About Lies, History, and the Church”, and many more. Together with Barbara Engelking, he co-authored the concept of the Shoah section of the permanent exhibition at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. In 2019, he was honored with the prestigious Kazimierz Wyka Award which rewards prominent books in the fields of literary and artistic critique and essays.

Partner: Czarne Publishing House

This is an event accompanying the exhibition: “Some Were Neighbors: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust” created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In Polish.
Free admission.