Places I have to visit before i die
Cash crisis threat to Auschwitz
This is Birkenau, the largest camp in the Auschwitz complex, where most of its 1.1 million victims - 90% of them Jews - were murdered.
But after nearly seven decades exposed to the elements, few of what were originally hundreds of structures remain standing, and those which have survived are gradually rotting away.
Unlike the smaller Auschwitz I - sturdy brick-built former Polish cavalry barracks expropriated by the Nazis - Birkenau (or Auschwitz II) was erected in 1941 solely as a death camp, and was not built to last.
With every passing year the urgency to preserve what is left of the site grows, and while steps are being taken to do so, crucial conservation work is hampered by a shortage of funds.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is quite literally disintegrating. It is of of those places which i hope to visit before i die. I believe that Auschwitz-Birkenau should be preserved, if only as a physical reminder of the horrors of the past. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Auschwitz-Birkenau is reminder that “all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing,” as Edmund Burke might say. It is a place of great historical significance, and it would be a pity to lose it. It is one of those few places in the world where disrepair actually adds to the morbid charm of the place.
