Controversial Plan Adding Amusement Park To Auschwitz Museum Alarms Jewish Groups
By CHRISTIAN PLUMBER
Published January 12, 2013
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a memorial and museum in Oświęcim (German: Auschwitz), Poland, which includes the German concentration camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Since the end of the Cold War, the museum has not been accustomed to controversy. A new plan for an amusement park next to Auschwitz I, however, has Jewish groups as well as members of the local Polish government up in arms.
The governing body of the Auschwitz I section of the museum – which was founded in 1947 – has for years attempted to equal the attendance of its rival Auschwitz II-Birkenau located only 3-km away. The overall number of visitors to both facilities has been increasing year by year. In 2006 more than one million people from 94 countries visited one or both. Because Auschwitz II-Birkenau contains more intact buildings and indoor museum exhibits, it attracts most of the visitors.
Last week Kaczyński Jarosław, the Director of Auschwitz I Operations at the museum unveiled a plan to construct a 55-acre amusement park complete with rides and contests of skill. According to Mr. Jarosław each of the rides and other attractions would “advance education of the Holocaust among young persons.” Architectural plans released by Jarosław’s office included sketches of a roller coaster dubbed “The Nazi Hunter.”