Posted on 04/11/2006 10:50:50 AM PDT by 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.
You're seeing it perfectly well.
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.
I think you are seeing it correctly. This was a German/Nazi site, not a Polish one.
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.
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.
Never mind that the people in the area of the camps pretended they knew nothing?
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.
‘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).
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.
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.
No polish guards at the camps?
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