Auschwitz. Not long Ago. Not far away. will be presented at ROM from January 10 to September 1, 2025. For more information, please visit the website here.

TORONTO, November 6, 2024 - The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.”, which examines the history and legacy of the most significant site of the Holocaust, for its exclusive Canadian showing. Opened on January 10, 2025, and running until September 1, 2025, the exhibition arrives just ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which took place on January 27, 1945. Featuring hundreds of authentic objects as well as archival documents and historic photographs – never before seen in Canada – Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions ever created on the subject.

“Arriving on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, this groundbreaking exhibition is unprecedented both in scale and scope,” said Josh Basseches, ROM Director & CEO. “From a single discarded shoe to the searing testimony of survivors, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. provides a comprehensive look at one of the darkest moments of the 20th century. It is also, in the tradition of ROM, a call to understand the past, so that, together, we can shape a shared future.”

Auschwitz became a system of concentration and death camps in which over 1 million Jews – and tens of thousands of others, including Poles, Romani, and Soviet prisoners of war – were killed in a systematic and industrialized fashion. Developed by an international panel of curators and historians, the exhibition marks the first time a collection this immense has come together to tell the story of Auschwitz, and the objects will only be gathered and presented as an exhibition for a brief period.

Created by Musealia and co-produced with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, the exhibition will include more than 500 original objects from one of the most devastating periods in human history. In addition to the hundreds of authentic items from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, special loans are also included from over 20 other major institutions and private collections around the world.

The ROM presentation of Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away. is part of an international tour which began in 2017 and has included stops to date in Madrid, Spain; Malmo, Sweden; and Los Angeles, Boston, and New York in the U.S.

To further support access and opportunities for enhanced education about the significance of the Holocaust, ROM will offer free admission to Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. for grade 6-12 students participating in organized visits from Ontario-based schools. The Museum will also develop exhibition-related teacher training materials, as well as online school learning resources.