News
UNESCO Heritage Committee Approves Measure to Change Name of Auschwitz Camp
July 12, Vilnius (PAP) – The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided on Wednesday to support a Polish proposal to change the name under which Auschwitz is inscribed on the organization's World Heritage List. Now inscribed as "Auschwitz Concentration Camp," the site will be renamed "Former Nazi German Concentration and Death Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau."
The head of the Polish delegation, deputy culture minister Krzysztof Olendzki, said that "the decision to change the name of the camp will be taken next year in New Zealand, at the 31st UNESCO session."
Olendzki indicated that experts need more time before a binding decision is taken "in order to forecast all the possible implications of the change." He added that "this is a natural procedure that we would have to go through in any case. It is not a matter of any kind of political tension."
The World Heritage Committee has been meeting in Vilnius since Saturday. (PAP)
