Auschwitz crematorium
Photo: AP
Entrance to death camp
Photo: Reuters
World Heritage Committee renames Auschwitz death camp
Following Polish request, UNESCO agrees to officially change name of WWII death camp to 'Auschwitz-Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp' to stress that Poland had no role in camp
UNESCO has officially renamed the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to make clear it was established and run by occupying German Nazi forces, a World Heritage Committee spokesman said Thursday.
The camp will now be known as "Auschwitz-Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)," said Roni Amelan, a spokesman for UNESCO's World Heritage Committee.
The committee agreed to change the name from "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" at a meeting in New Zealand following a request from Poland, and the change is effective immediately, Amelan said.
Auschwitz, where the Nazis killed more than 1 million people, has become a symbol of the Holocaust. Birkenau was the neighboring camp and the site of the main gas chambers and crematoriums.
Most of those killed were European Jews, although Poles, Gypsies and others were also exterminated in the death camp's gas chambers or died from starvation, disease and forced labor during its roughly five years of operation.
The complex was established by the Nazis in the suburbs of the German-occupied city of Oswiecim - Auschwitz in its German form.
The first transport of Polish political prisoners arrived June 14, 1940, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Soviet troops liberated the camp on January 27, 1945.
Poland, which was subjected to a brutal occupation by Adolf Hitler's forces, sought the name change to ensure that future generations understand it had no role in establishing or running the camp, which was made a World Heritage site by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1979.
The UNESCO committee considered a request to change the name last year, but postponed the decision to consult with historians and other interested parties after failing to agree.
