Auschwitz name change proposal angers Jewish community

Radio Polonia ^ | 11.04.06 | Michal Kubicki

[lizol]

Auschwitz name change proposal angers Jewish community

Poland’s request to UNESCO for the name of Auschwitz to be changed on the World Heritage List to the Nazi-German Concentration Camp has met with criticism from the international Jewish community.

Michal Kubicki reports

11.04.06

Poland has asked the UN culture organization UNESCO to describe the former Auschwitz camp as ‘Nazi’ and ‘German’ in the UNESCO list of heritage sites. UESCO is to respond to the request by the end of June. In Germany the proposal has provoked mixed reactions.

At present the site of the former camp is listed as the “Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The Polish government proposes a new wording: ‘former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp’.

The Polish initiative, which comes after many incidents in which the foreign press referred to the camp as ‘Polish’, has led to critical comments in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper which argued that the symbolism of Auschwitz should not be confined to Nazi crimes because the site is the universal symbol of genocide.

Most recently, Maram Stern, deputy general secretary of the World Jewish Congress, has accused Poland of attempts to ‘redefine history by changing the name’. The organization’s statement further says that ‘although the camp had been built by Germany, everybody in the area had known about its existence and workers were recruited from the Polish neighbouring village’.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, head of the International Auschwitz Council, himself a former prisoner, has disagreed with the WJC statement, stressing that none of the local residents worked at Auschwitz.

Deputy minister for culture Tomasz Merta, one of the authors of the Polish proposal addressed to UNESCO, is also very critical of the statement.

”The statement by the World Jewish Congress says, among other things, that Poles had contributed to the construction of the camp. This cannot be accepted. There is no ground whatsoever to claim that the Polish people had a share in the construction of the camp and that, by this token, they bear any responsibility.”

Jaroslaw Mensfeld, a spokesman for the State Museum of Auschwitz

”It is a pity that people from the World Jewish Congress, an organization whose name suggests that it represents the opinion of Jews living all over the world, say something which is totally absurd. The WJC statement testifies to Mr Maram Stern’s complete ignorance. On the other hand, one of the organization’s secretaries, or even vice-chairmen I think, is Kalman Sultanik, who contributed millions of dollars of financial help for the maintenance of the memorial in Auschwitz which testifies to what the Germans did, because everyone, but a few people, knows that Auschwitz was a Nazi German concentration camp. “

The statement by the World Jewish Congress also says that the Warsaw government wants the history of Auschwitz to be separated from the Polish history and to make it clear that Poland had no involvement in the death camp. Jaroslaw Mensfeld again.

”Poland during the war was occupied by Nazi Germany and it was Nazi Germans who built in Poland, among many, six death killing centres where they murdered millions of Jews. If there is any talk of who the perpetrator was, and people say ‘Germans but not only’, this is total ignorance.”

The Polish Association of Auschwitz Families has called on the government to condemn the stand taken by the World Jewish Congress.

The Auschwitz camp was built by the Nazis in 1940 on the site of a former Polish army barracks near the town of Oswiecim. It was later expanded to the nearby village of Birkenau. At least 1.1 million people perished there. Ninety percent of the victims were European Jews.

[Red6]

I can see the Polish position on this. They were not the ones to do the evil deeds there yet this place Caries this name. It seems they want the ugly face of those events from that era to be associated with those who "DID" the evil deeds.

Or am I seeing it all wrong?

[lizol]

You're seeing it perfectly well.

[eyespysomething]

I'm siding with the Poles on this one. I think the suggested name is more historically accurate. Usually nowadays if a name is changed it goes in the other, PC, direction.

[WildHorseCrash]

I think you are seeing it correctly. This was a German/Nazi site, not a Polish one.

[Cagey]

Why change it? It was Auschwitz during the war. That would be like changing "The Bataan Death March" to "The Mean Japanese March".

Let's live History real.

[Red6]

If an ax murderer came to my home and killed a bunch of children and then in history books it goes down as the "(My name) residence murders" I too would have some objections.

[lizol]

Why change it?

Go through this:

APPEAL AGAINST "POLISH DEATH" CAMPS

[Spktyr]

Not quite - this would be like calling it the "Imperial Japanese Bataan Death March" - thus noting who was responsible for that event, not just the geographical location.

[lizol]

If I were a Filipino I wouldn't like to see systematicly sentences like "American POWs were forced to take a part in Filipino Bataan Death March".

[OldFriend]

Never mind that some polish people turned in their jewish neighbors and then ransacked their homes.

Never mind that the people in the area of the camps pretended they knew nothing?

[lizol]

ADL Urges UNESCO to Ensure That Auschwitz Is Designated As "German" Camp

[lizol]

Never mind that the people in the area of the camps pretended they knew nothing?

And what those people were supposed to do????

And does it make Auschwitz a "Polish" death camp?

[Grzegorz 246]

I wanted to say something, however I am not going to waste my time, so I only repeat my comment from a different thread about the same issue.

Blaming Poles is in both German and Jewish interest, so sooner or later that will happen. Actually that is already happening, however times are changing and like one guy said: what goes around comes around. Some day we will punish our enemies. Huje precz.

[eyespysomething]

Did you know Poland was about the only country which welcomed Jews during the Black Plague, when most other European countries were blaming them and killing lots of them.

[Petronski]

The proposed new name only adds modifiers, it subtracts nothing:

‘former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp’

It's also important to include the word "Birkenau" since it was at the adjacent Birkenau where the vast bulk of the killing was conducted. Birkenau was an actual vernichtungslager (extermination camp: a facility constructed solely for the purpose of the industrialized killings), whereas Auschwitz I was a work camp where killings occurred.

As a side note, at Auschwitz III (Monowitz), there was a gigantic IG Farben artificial rubber (buna) facility which was purely an arbeitslager, or work camp.

The entire complex is known as Auschwitz, but these details are important because they reflect the Nazi mindset: labor to work camps until they're useless, then on to Birkenau for "disposal," non-labor directly to Birkenau for "special treatment" (sonderbehandlung).

[Red6]

Wow-

Funny how many in Germany talk about how they were freed from NAZI oppression and now you even want to paint the Poles as the culprits.

There were a "few" Volkdeutsche Americans who even joined the German Army in WWII. You can always find a freak, the exception in order to try to void the rule.

The Poles resisted the NAZI's. The Poles in Warsaw had a huge Resistance. Some of the Polish Jews actually fought back. You are turning the world upside down. While a few Poles did collaborate, the majority did not. Poland was one of the biggest "trouble" spots even for the Soviets. Even today the Poles are very independent, sovereign and proud of who they are, what they are, their culture, history and heritage. In fact, this is even today one of the reasons why the Poles are in constant feud within the EU. The Poles don't want EU rules on homo's, abortion and other issues rammed down their throat.

[twinself]

Now please explain me what is the link between adding adjective "German" to Auschwitz name and the stuff that you mentioned? Anyway I've got some stuff too for you to think of:

Nevermind about 100.000 ethnic Poles lost thier lives in Auschwitz.

Nevermind thousands of ethnic Poles in years '39-41 went to a one-way-ticket trip to Siberia turned in by their commie neighbours who accidentaly happened to be of Jewish origin. Nevermind some of these neighbours later axed Polish villages killing mostly women and children (like Jacob Penner or Shmuel Kaplinsky) and are proud of it to this very day.

Nevermind hiding a Jew in occupied Poland was punished by killing of your whole family and that more than 5.000 of Poles actually took the risk.

Nevermind Jan Karski - special courier of Polish underground government informed the USA and British allies about details of holocaust machine in 1943 at the meeting with FDR.

Nevermind German facilities a couple of miles from the camp were successfully bombed in summer '44 by British bombers. Nevermind American ones bombed at the same time tracks leading to the factory.

[SuziQ]

It seems they want the ugly face of those events from that era to be associated with those who "DID" the evil deeds.

True. It sounds like they don't want the name Auschwitz removed, they just want it clarified that it wasn't Polish PEOPLE or Goverment that opened and ran this camp.

[OldFriend]

No polish guards at the camps?

[twinself]

Yeah, almost as many as American ones. Geez... ignorance is bliss.

[OldFriend]

I am sure that my grandmother would have been pleased to know that Poland welcomed it's jews during the Black Plague.

No doubt that would have made her feel better about her entire family being sent to the ovens.

[twinself]

Poland didn't invade any country to get rid of your grandmother and her relatives. Polish government welcomed many thousands of Jews not only in Black Plague days but also in January of 1939 - couple of months before the WW2 outbreak.

Ship called "St. Louis" with 930 Jewish passengers waited for 2 weeks at the gates of Miami counting on asylum in the US - it did not get it and returned to Western Europe.

12th of May 1943 as a form of protest against world's indifference to the holocaust of Jews Szmul Zygelbojm, Jewish delegate in Polish National Council in London commited suicide. That is what he wrote before he died: "Responsibility for the crime of murdering the whole Jewish nation should be blamed on perpetrators, but indirectly it burdens the whole mankind".

[OldFriend]

My grandmother and her family were polish jews. No country had to be invaded for them to be sent to their death.

And pardon my ignorance, but I thought the Warsaw Ghetto was in Poland too.

Guess it was manned by Americans as another poster suggested about Auschwitz.

[twinself]

No country had to be invaded for them to be sent to their death.

You're wrong again. Of course it had. Their own - Poland.

And pardon my ignorance, but I thought the Warsaw Ghetto was in Poland too.

Your ignorance is pardoned but not excused, especially in the light of the fact that some of your family members were Holocaust victims. So for your knowledge: Warsaw ghetto had indeed their own police subordinate to Jewish Council - Judenrat. It was all Jewish police. They rounded up people on Umschlagplatz to be later sent to death camps.




The name of the operation of ghettos liquidation in General Protectorate was Operation Rheinhard. Odilo Globoznick was the head of this operation. His deputee was SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Christian Wirth. The guards on the corners of ghetto were German soldiers - from SS and Schutzpolizei. The guy who liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 was Juergen Stropp.

[SuziQ]

I don't know if there were Polish guards at Auschwitz. I'm not sure that the Germans would have trusted them. They didn't think much of the Polish people as a whole.

[twinself]

Oh yes they did. Poles were supposed to be turned into slaves of German Volk. Polish inteligentsia were to be removed from the face of the Earth (so called AB Aktion). Also the Polish land was supposed to be used as Lebensraum (living space) for expanding Dritte Reich. As a result 800.000 Poles have been expelled from their homes and these were taken by German colonizers. Many thousands have been sent as slave workers to Germany proper. 6 M Polish citizens were killed during the WW2. 2-2.5 million of them were ethnic Poles.

As for Polish guards in Auschwitz - as I said Polish guards were the second biggest group, just after Americans from the States [dark sarcasm].

[OldFriend]

The Warsaw Ghetto was created as a condominium and garden apartment complex for the jews.

They much preferred to be confined to the area, locked in at night etc.

[SuziQ]

That's what I meant. The Germans didn't think much of Polish people at all. They were only useful as workers, then discarded when they were no longer useful.

Some think about the Holocaust as an exclusively Jewish event, because over 6 million Jews were killed. But there were another 7 million or so who were also killed including the ethnic Poles, Russians, Gypsies, other ethnic groups not considered pure enough by the Germans, and many Catholics, including nuns and priests, who were caught hiding Jews from the Germans.

One of my husband's professors in college was about 5 when the Germans started rounding up Jews in Poland. His mother wasn't able to get both herself and him out, so she took him to a local Catholic boarding school where the nuns sheltered him for over 6 years. When the war was over, thankfully his mother had survived and came to get him.

[lizol]

No

[lizol]

And pardon my ignorance, but I thought the Warsaw Ghetto was in Poland too.

Guess it was manned by Americans as another poster suggested about Auschwitz. …

My Goodness! Man, are you trying to say, that the Warsaw Ghetto was manned by the Poles???

Try to learn a bit about it, it's not going to hurt, believe me.

Warsaw Ghetto

[OldFriend]

Are you suggesting that the Warsaw Ghetto was created by Germans?

[1rudeboy]

Are you suggesting the Warsaw Ghetto is the reason Auschwitz should not be renamed?

[eyespysomething]

The poles sent her family to the ovens?

[SittinYonder]

Why does it seem like everyone's always asking questions?

[1rudeboy]

Good question. Why?

[SittinYonder]

Jeopardy?

[twinself]

and... What's your point? Nobody "preferred" anything under German Nazi terror. Your views are distorted and romanticized by watching to many Chuck Norris movies. If you lived then in occupied Poland your life would be much simpler, I assure you. You either did what German soldiers told you and were allowed to live another day or opposed and you were dead that very second. That's how it was. Deal with it.

[twinself]

EUREKA!!!!

[WKUHilltopper]

I don't disagree with your logic. To an extent, the entire world is guilty of the blood of innocent Jews--not just the Polish--especially where they had knowledge.

[twinself]

What about the blood of inncocent Polish?

[Grzegorz 246]

What about American jews ?

[Grzegorz 246]

"Are you suggesting that the Warsaw Ghetto was created by Germans?"

[lizol]

Are you suggesting, that people need water to live? (sarcasm)

Follow the link, that I've provided above.

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany in General Government during the Holocaust in World War II.

[FreedomCalls]

If an ax murderer came to my home and killed a bunch of children and then in history books it goes down as the "(My name) residence murders" I too would have some objections.

I wonder what Sharon Tate and Rosemary and Leno LaBianca would say about something like that?

http://www.culteducation.com/manson.html

[OldFriend]

All the ghettos all over europe were established long before the holocaust. Long before the nazi's began their march thru europe.

The ghettos were established for the comfort and convenience of the jewish population.

Believe what you will. Rewriting history is a longtime pastime of certain populations.

Burning textbooks has long been the domain of despots. They have help now from certain people the world over.

[lizol]

Warsaw Ghetto from WW2 is something absolutley different, than Jewish part of the city before.

I believe you don't have Jewish, or Italian, or Polish, or Irish or else ethnicity part of cities in U.S.?

And Black "ghettos" in America are also "established for the comfort and convenience of the Black population"?. (sarcasm)

[kaiser80]

It is actually sad that someone of "polish" descent is such an ignorant. No wonder there is a wide-spread antipolonism among some jewish extremists. So sad.