Poland to rename Auschwitz to...

WARSAW, Poland (Reuters) -- The United Nations has agreed to rename Auschwitz concentration camp
to stress that Nazi Germans, not Poles, were responsible for the world's most notorious death camp, Poland's Culture Ministry said on Wednesday.

"Auschwitz Concentration Camp", a U.N. heritage site, will be renamed "the Former Nazi German Concentration Camp of Auschwitz", the ministry of culture said in a statement.

Poland asked the U.N. in April to rename Auschwitz, where 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died in World War Two.

Warsaw objects to references to "Polish gas chambers" at the "Polish concentration camp" in foreign media. Nearly 3 million non-Jewish Poles died at Nazi hands, and Poles see themselves as victims of the war.

I guess people could think Poles helped though

Dear Sir,
Dear Colleague,
Acting as the Editor-in-Chief of the "Rzeczpospolita" daily, the most renowned opinion-forming Polish daily newspaper that has always focused on truth and the compliance with the ethical principles also in the sphere of journalism I have noticed with pain and grief that in many renowned newspapers all over the world a term "Polish concentration camps" appears time and again with the harm to the Poles. Over decades this unacceptable shortcut in thinking seems to have gained more and more popularity rather than to have been replaced by knowledge of history. I want to believe that the reason for using the above term is haste and professional negligence rather than ill will.

Let me remind that Poland lost its sovereignty as the state in September 1939 and was the territory in Europe that was occupied the longest by Nazi Germany. There was no collaborative government in Poland. Poles in no way participated in the administrative decisions of the German authorities. The concentration camps were established on the territory of Poland by the German officials and were supervised by the German personnel. People going to gas chambers were selected by the German army officers. The death sentences were executed by the German officials. These were the German death camps where members of various nationalities lost their lives, primarily Jews, but also Poles.

The Polish society, organised in the form of underground state, took a lot of efforts to save people doomed for extermination. Despite alarms sent to the allies about genocide the Polish society did not receive any assistance. In the West nobody believed or did not want to believe in the information about mass genocide that was first delivered to the allies by the members of Polish resistance movement.

I would like to remind you that Poland was the first victim of Hitler and that as a result of war 6 million Polish citizens including 3 million Polish Jews lost their lives and that the size of the Polish armed efforts makes Poles the fourth largest force of the anti-Nazi coalition. The participants of this fight and victims of martyrdom and their descendants perceive the term "Polish concentration camps" as an insult.

I appeal to you in the name of professional decency: write as frequently as possible about the concentration camps and the extermination so that they never repeat again. But do write truth.

Grzegorz Gauden
The Editor-in-Chief

why Tucson? think UA needs something near it since it doesn't get as much as ASU or what?

Nearly 3 million non-Jewish Poles died at Nazi hands, and Poles see themselves as victims of the war.

I think it is a pity though that whoever decided the name change did not just make it to "the Former Nazi Concentration Camp of Auschwitz", and they have to continue to drag Germany through the guilt mire...

The camp remained in use after 1945, I don't think there were any major structural changes or nice touches like pretty curtains.

Totalitarian regimes love ready made camps.