Lonan3 Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 LINK TO 'INDEPENDENT' ARTICLE The official title of Auschwitz death camp has been changed to include the word "German" in response to diplomatic pressure from Poland. The move seems destined to inflame already strained relations between Warsaw and Berlin. Roni Amelan, a spokesman for Unesco, the UN's culture organisation, said that in future the camp would be referred to as the "Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi concentration and extermination camp 1940-1945". He said the decision to add the word "German" to the name of the camp, where more than one million, mainly Jewish, prisoners were killed during the Second World War, had been taken to dispel Warsaw's fears that Poland might be blamed for taking part in the organising and running of Auschwitz. In recent years, international media have mistakenly referred to "the Polish concentration camp". The site is near the city of Cracow in southern Poland. Kazimierz Ujadowski, the Polish Culture Minister, welcomed Unesco's decision to agree to his government's request: "This is a victory for truth," he said at a press conference in Warsaw. Auschwitz is a Unesco World Heritage Site. The renaming of Auschwitz - the German spelling for the Polish town of Oswieçim which was incorporated into Nazi Germany in 1939 - was the latest diplomatic barb to be directed by President Lech Kaczynski and his twin, Jaroslaw Kacyznski, the Prime Minister, at Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition in Berlin. Germans and Poles not getting along? Who would have thought it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amadeus Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Germans and Poles not getting along? Who would have thought it? Let's say there have been some slight problems in the very recent past... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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