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Regulatory Plan for the Grounds and Immediate Surroundings of Auschwitz-Birkenau Being Prepared

For some time now, residents of the housing settlements adjacent to the Museum have been concerned about various expert recommendations connected with the so-called Regulatory Plan for the Grounds and Immediate Surroundings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Site as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Object.

In this context, the Museum appeals to all interested parties for an open, fact-based dialogue, for the good of Oświęcim and its residents, and declares the following:

• the legal basis for regulating the city's zoning, and therefore the grounds of the Museum and its immediate surroundings, is the document titled "Municipal Zoning Plan," as required by the Act on Planning and Zoning.
• Furthermore, under the 1999 act on the protection of the sites of Nazi death camps, the "Local Plan" must, in the case of Oświęcim, additionally be approved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration. At the present time, no such plan has been promulgated.
• all of the expert recommendations on the subject of the site of the Auschwitz camp are exclusively informational in nature. This includes the Regulatory Plan for the Grounds and Immediate Surroundings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp Site as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Object. This plan is being prepared for UNESCO on commission from the Polish Ministry for Culture and National Heritage. It is of a purely consultative nature and has no legal force. The administrative plan is being prepared under the supervision of a special committee including representatives of Oświęcim local government, among them the mayor of the city. It is intended to be subjected to wide-ranging consultation, and to be accepted by all interested parties, before the presentation of its final conclusions.
• The fact that the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp is inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List does not impose any restrictions on the lives of the residents of Oświęcim and the surrounding areas. The only thing to which parties, like Poland, are obliged as a result of signing the Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, is to carry out general policies, to the degree that this is possible and as appropriate to the given conditions, intended to take the protection of this heritage into account in general planning programs.
• In this regard, it is not in the interests of the Museum to create any sort of impediment to the functioning of the city of Oświęcim with its population of 40 thousand, or of the nearby towns and villages. Decisions as to any sort of steps intended for the possible commemoration of specific places located outside the grounds of the Museum can be made only by the national or local governments, with the Museum playing an exclusively consultative role.

The brick buildings...