The Auschwitz Gateway Project

2015-2016, 7 minutes

The video conveys a few basic facts and sets a simple tone for visitors to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. The production serves as a bridge experience, in between the world of the "visitor transport experience" to modern-day Oswiecim (via motorcoach, auto, or train) to the world they will enter momentarily when they walk under the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gateway to the Auschwitz 1 site. The installation was designed to be experienced in this one place only; in a renovated cinema hall located 200 feet from the gateway to Auschwitz.  An innovative use of archival stills and motion picture overlaps with contemporary 4k plates and low altitude visuals.  This allows visitors to focus on the places where each person will physically stand on this day, amidst the low and lengthening shadows of yesterday. The audio track is available in dozens of languages. The installation went live in the summer of 2021. Even in the pandemic, 70,000 people passed through the cinema hall in the last part of 2021.  "A very valuable part of the whole experience," says Pawel Sawecki (Media and Press Officer, Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.) 

This VIDEO excerpt from the Gateway Project was used for the commemoration of the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.