Today, more appropriately, the exhibitions do focus on the Nazis' efforts to exterminate European Jews. The politics of representing the Holocaust, however, remain murky, confused, and tense. Nothing detracted from the sheer emotional power of walking around the largest of the Nazi death factories and learning about how its "efficiency" was gradually increased between 1940 and 1945. However, when the Nazis' non-Jewish innocent victims were repeatedly listed on the introductory panels, one group was left out, which I found troubling.
I took up the matter with my assigned tour guide. Here's how our conversation went:
TSW: Were any of the Nazis' homosexual prisoners brought to Auschwitz?
Guide: Yes they were.
TSW: How many?
Guide: I don't know.
TSW: Why don't you know?
Guide: The Nazis destroyed a lot of records. There's no way to know.
TSW: If there were homosexual prisoners here, then why isn't that mentioned in any of the placards [along with the Polish non-Jews, Roma/gypsies, and political prisoners, who are all repeatedly mentioned in addition to the Jews]?
Guide: I don't know.
TSW: Why haven't you mentioned homosexuals so far in your tour?
Guide: I will tell about the triangles, later.
Later in the exhibition, she pointed to a Nazi diagram showing the badges that the various groups of prisoners were forced to wear, much like this one:
And the guide did, indeed, say it: "...green for professional criminals, purple for Jehovah's witnesses, pink for homosexuals and so on." Still, it seems strange that a tour guide would only mention homosexuals because the Nazi document she's showing us does so.
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