Saturday, January 30, 2010

Can Auschwitz be Saved?


Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
The gateway sign says "Work Will Set You Free," a monstrous lie told to the men, women and children imprisoned there.

January 27, 2010 marked the 65th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation by Soviet soldiers. The Nazis operated the camp between May 1940 and January 1945. In 1947 the Polish government began maintaining Auschwitz as a museum and memorial.

The issue now is that Auschwitz is deteriorating. It has 155 buildings and hundreds of thousands of artifacts.


Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
Human Hair shorn from prisoners for use in German products is exhibited in cases but, as human remains, will be allowed to decay.

According to Smithsonian.com, The Auschwitz camp covers 50 acres and consists of 46 historical buildings, including two-story red brick barracks, a kitchen, a crematorium and several administration buildings. In addition, Birkenau, (officially labeled Auschwitz II) a satellite camp about two miles away, covers over 400 acres and has 30 barracks and 20 wooden structures, railroad tracks and of four gas chambers and crematoria. In total 150 buildings and more than 300 ruins at the two sites.

Currently dozens of barracks have cracked walls and sinking foundations. Certain areas have been closed for safety reasons.


Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
The Polish government in 2009 asked European nations, the United States and Israel to contribute to a fund from which the Auschwitz museum could draw $6 million to $7 million a year for restoration projects. Last December, the German government pledged $87 million—about half of the $170 million target endowment.

Interestingly enough until 1990, the museum’s directors were all former prisoners. The last survivors are living links to what happened at Auschwitz however they will not live forever. Many believe that preserving the are is important especially for younger generations.Then there are some who are critical of maintaining Auschwitz. Some feel that the camp has become somewhat of a theme park and is far too manicured to offer the reality of what took place there.

Auschwitz was designed to work its prisoners to death. According to Smithsonian, most of the hard labor assisted in expanding the camp and other labors such as gravel mining and farming, earned money for the SS. The Nazis term for it was, Vernichtung durch Arbeit or “Destruction through work”. New arrivals to the camp were often greeted with a speech. “You have arrived here not at a sanatorium, but at a German concentration camp, from which the only exit is through the chimney of its crematorium.”For more information go to Smithsonian.com.

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