The September 12th Chicago Tribune had an article by Laurie Goering about how Poland is short funds for preservation of the symbols of Nazi genocide, particularly in the most infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz.
However, Auschwitz and it neighboring satellite camp of Birkenau, were not built to last. hastily-constructed brick barracks where hundreds of thousands of prisoners spent their last days sleeping in straw on crude wooden bunks have been buckling and heaving each winter. Efforts have been made to prevent corrosion on the camps' concrete fence posts with their barbed wire. The tens of thousands of aging documents and vast piles of shoes, suitcases, and dolls are suffering as well.
An official says that Poland is not a rich country and that the whole camps may have to be closed in ten to twenty years if preservation does not take place.
At Birkenau, where most of the 1.5 million Jews and others who died at the camps were murdered, visitors can still walk the railway siding where families were herded out and checked by Nazi physicians to see who could work and who would die.
Nearby, there are also 150 brick and wooden barracks and other camp buildings as well as the ruins of mass gas chambers and crematoriums that were destroyed by the Nazis as the war ended.
Last year, 1.5 million people toured the camps.
Lest We Forget. Let's Hope the Camps Are Saved. --
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