Ethics Newsline®

OŚWIĘCIM, Poland
An ethical controversy is developing over the remains of the Auschwitz concentration camp, with some contending that it is important to keep the structure and the memory alive while critics say fixing up the facility will give ammunition to Holocaust deniers.

The International Herald Tribune reports that the new director of the exhibits at Auschwitz, known formally as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, is attempting to find ways to preserve evidence of Nazi crimes. Complicating the issue is the fact that, as director Piotr Cywinski notes, “This wasn’t built as a medieval castle with strong materials to last for all time…. It was a Nazi camp built to last a short time.”

Cywinski is calling for retaining walls to be built around the gas chambers to prevent them from sinking and caving in.

But as reported in the newspaper the Scotsman, that proposal has run into opposition from some who claim that fixing up the structure would provide Holocaust deniers more ammunition for claims that the events and evidence of Nazi atrocities are fabricated.

Jonathan Webber, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Birmingham, England, and a member of the council that advises administrators of the Polish death camp, tells the Scotsman that “anyone tampering with gas chambers is tampering with the heart and soul of what Auschwitz represents.”

Webber wants advice from the best engineering experts in the world before making any decisions about preserving the gas chambers, the Scotsman reports.

Jan. 27 was the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Russian military.