News

Former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner Dina Gottliebova visited the Museum in the company of her daughter, her lawyer, and an NBC television crew. She is demanding the return of watercolors of Gypsies that she painted on orders from Dr. Mengele.

The Polish President signed a law on the protection of Nazi concentration camp sites, which also regulates the buffer zone around the Museum.

"Polish Concentration Camps." The November 1998 issue of The Australian carried an article titled "Blessed Be Their Names," containing the following passage: "The beatification in 1971 of Maximilian Kolbe, who died in a Polish concentration camp in 1941, attracted controversy because of allegations that he had been guilty of anti-Semitism as a journalist before the war..." After a series of protests from the Central Council of Polish Organizations in Australia, the Australian Press Board ruled on May 14, 1999 (in favor of the Central Council) that the expression "Polish death camps" could mislead Australian readers, is offensive to Poles, and therefore violates the principles of Australian journalism.

Several Museum workers engaged in preparing new exhibits and new plans for the functioning of the Museum made a study tour around the United States, visiting museums and enters of higher education and culture on the East and West Coasts and meeting people involved in exhibitions and educational policies at museums and memorial sites.

Approximately 1,600 people, including several hundred Poles, took part in the Eleventh March of the Living.

A conference was held on the problem of the conservation of the concrete posts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp perimeter fence.