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MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU FORMER GERMAN NAZI
CONCENTRATION AND EXTERMINATION CAMP

IAC Meetings

Meeting IX: 6 December 2004

15-09-2008

The International Auschwitz Council considered an outline of the plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which falls on 27 January 2005, and with the state of preparations for this. 

The Council heard a report by the directors of the State Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum for the previous six months. It noted with satisfaction a further increase in the number of visitors. The members of the Council expressed their hope that this year's delay in the works on the opening of the International Centre of Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust will be made good next year, after the design for the Centre has been approved by the Council of Ministers.

The Council examined a motion from the government of Slovenia to erect a memorial tablet in the Slovene language on the territory of the former Birkenau camp. However, at present it is not possible to add more tablets without altering the memorial's appearance. Nevertheless, the Council acknowledged the need to seek the kind of solution that will in future ensure the presence of tablets in the languages of all the victims of the camp.

The Council also considered motions regarding selected properties existing on the site of the former camp at Plaszow, and said it is essential to perform broad-scale work in order to properly commemorate this site.