International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Auschwitz
The International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Auschwitz is an educational institution whose campus lies between the center of the Polish city of Oświęcim and the former German concentration camp of Auschwitz. More than one million persons, mostly Jewish and Polish, were murdered at Auschwitz during the Second World War (1939–1945). Proposed in 1971, the center was opened in 1986 following years of planning, negotiations, and fundraising. It seeks to "develop the understanding of National Socialism and its consequences, particularly among young Germans, through dialogue and encounter between people of different origins", and is particularly engaged with Germans and Poles, Christians and Jews. In 2010, the Center hosted more than 17,000 overnight stays by youth groups participating in its programs. Many young Germans and Austrians have held year-long voluntary positions at the Center that satisfy their civilian service (Zivildienst) responsibility. One of these, Robert Thalheim, wrote and directed the German-language dramatic film And Along Come Tourists (2007) that features the center and its activities.
Auschwitz as a place of memorial does not offer answers; it merely shocks people into asking questions — and especially the subversive questions. Perhaps this is its true role. But it can also (should also) be seen as a place of healing, through dialogue ... Over the last nineteen years, three independent educational centers have in fact been set up in the vicinity of the museum: first (in the 1980s) a German-Polish youth center, then a Catholic center, and most recently (in 2000) a Jewish center ... Collectively, the establishment of these centers means that Auschwitz is not only a site of mourning and meditation, a site of memory, but also a site of researching, learning, and encounter, interreligious or otherwise. The growth of these institutions hints at new strategies emerging for a long-term future.
—Jonathan Webber (2006)
The Polish and German names for the center are Międzynarodowy Dom Spotkań Młodzieży w Oświęcimiu and Internationale Jugendbegegnungsstätte in Oświęcim/Auschwitz, respectively; the two names are conjoined in the abbreviation MDSM/IJBS for the center.