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NEWS
Entrance Fees to Concentration Camps?
by Yated Ne'eman Staff
According to a report in The Times of London, due to
funding shortages at World War II and Holocaust memorial
sites in Germany, an idea that has always been taboo was
raised: charging visitors' fees to cover the costs of tour
guides and maintenance. Several Nazi concentration camps are
now expected to charge for guided tours. The decision sparked
a controversy in Germany, which is still trying to shake off
its bloody past. Jewish organizations in Germany, politicians
and former camp prisoners voiced strong objections. "These
are cemeteries!" said the spokesman for the Central Council
of German Jews. "You're not supposed to pay money to mourn
your dead."
Pieter Diez de Loos, a Dutch attorney who serves as president
of the International Dachau Committee, claims that without
charging admission fees, his museum would not be able to meet
the high expectations for educating the country's younger
generation about the Holocaust and the terrible acts of
murder perpetrated at Dachau. De Loos says the site, located
in a suburb north of Munich, draws over 800,000 visitors
annually but cannot afford to pay the salary for more than
one tour guide.
"We will go bankrupt within five years," he told a reporter
for The Times, saying that funds designated for
assisting camp survivors are also running out.
The dispute is based on a claim by the respective site
managers that it would defeat the purpose to operate the
sites without a suitable guidance staff to present and
explain what transpired there. Gunther Morash, who oversees
the sites at Saxenhausen, Ravensbruck and Brandenburg,
explains he would have to reject 30-50 percent of all
requests for guided tours and could not hold special exhibits
and seminars, and issue catalogs as needed.
German death camps are funded by the federal government and
the provincial governments, but according to the various
directorships the budget is not enough to cover regular
operating costs. The largest death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau
in Southern Poland, receives a larger budget as well as
massive support by businessmen such as Jewish-American Ronald
Lauder, who helped renovate the crumbling wooden blocks. In
Germany, companies do not help fund these sites based on
fears of being associated with the Holocaust in any way.
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