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"Safeguarding the memory of the victims of the Auschwitz camp is one of the major tasks before us. We should all learn the history of this place and convey the knowledge we acquire to the succeeding generations. No one can ever fully recompense the victims for their agony and suffering. All we can do is to safeguard the memory of them, a memory that constitutes the basis for the posthumous restoration of their personhood, a memory that acts on our emotions and reason and that compels us to draw the appropriate conclusions.

The governor of Malopolska province has issued approval for the operation of a tourist services center within the 100-meter buffer zone around the site of the camp. This marks the end of the series of hearings, appeals, and controversy over the project by the Maja Corporation.

The fifth setting of the International Auschwitz Council was held in Oświęcim on April 15-16. The Council was convened by the Polish prime minister to advise on museums and monuments at the Holocaust and concentration camp sites in Poland.

The lack of a response from the Malopolska provincial monuments officer is delaying the start of production in the buildings that used to belong to the now-bankrupt Oświęcim Vehicle Repair Factory, which were purchased last September by an Italian firm that plans to employ up to 300 people there.

For the eleventh time, Jews came from all over the world to pay tribute to the victims who were murdered in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. As is traditional, the march began with the blowing of the shofar, after which the participants walked the three kilometers from the "Arbeit macht frei" gate to the ruins of the Birkenau gas chambers.

It seems to me that they come, first of all, to see the Holocaust sites: the largest and symbolically the most important one is in Oświęcim. Second, they come to see a place where anti-Semitism flourished. And perhaps still flourishes.