Decade marked since Auschwitz official UNESCO renaming
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
27.06.2017 12:13
UNESCO officially renamed the WWII-era Auschwitz camp to “Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nazi Germany's concentration and extermination camp (1940–45)” on 27 June 2007.
The entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/C.Puisney/CC BY-SA 3.0
The name change was first suggested by Polish and Israeli authorities.
Previously, the Nazi German camp was listed on the UNESCO list as the “Auschwitz Concentration Camp”.
The then-authorities of the two countries argued that the name was misleading because it did not emphasise the fact that Nazi Germany had built the camp in order to implement its “final solution” -- the mass murder of European Jews.
The camp, which was built by the Germans occupying Poland during WWII, and the present-day museum at the site, have often been referred to as a “Polish extermination camps” or “Polish concentration camps” by global media outlets.
Such misleading terms have appeared in the media in the UK, France, the United States, Canada, Italy, as well as in Germany and Russia, among other countries.
The camp was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. (rg/pk)