It is scheduled to run through the spring of 2029 while the museum's new permanent exhibition is under construction.
Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in southern Poland, said the show reflects decades of cooperation between the two institutions.
"Having our exhibition on display at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum marks the culmination of our excellent cooperation over the past several decades," Cywiński said. "I am delighted that the exhibition will help the museum continue fulfilling its important mission while its new exhibition is under construction."
US Holocaust Memorial Museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said the exhibition aims to bring the history of Auschwitz closer to visitors.
"Each year there are fewer Holocaust survivors, and World War II feels like the distant past to many Americans," she said. "We can’t bring our visitors to Auschwitz, but through this exhibition, we are bringing a sense of Auschwitz to them in a very visceral way."
The exhibition was developed jointly by the Auschwitz Museum and Spanish company Musealia, with artifacts drawn primarily from the museum's collection as well as more than 20 institutions and memorial sites worldwide.
It traces the development of Nazi ideology and the transformation of Oświęcim, a Polish town where Nazi Germany established its largest concentration camp and extermination centre during World War II.
About 1 million Jews, along with tens of thousands of others, were killed there.
The exhibition includes several hundred original objects, such as suitcases, eyeglasses and shoes belonging to victims and survivors.
Other artifacts include concrete fence posts, fragments of a prisoner barrack, personal items of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, a gas mask used by Adolf Hitler’s elite SS force, and a Pablo Picasso lithograph depicting a prisoner's face.
The exhibition has previously been shown in Spain, Sweden and several US cities, attracting more than 1.5 million visitors. In Washington, it will be free to the public for the first time during its international tour.
(mk/gs)
Source: auschwitz.org