March On Auschwitz

By Tjark Kunstreich, translated by Arm The Spirit from Junge Welt, 9 April 1996

Anti-Semitic Demonstration to Support the Construction of a Supermarket at the Memorial Site

Around 100 right-wing nationalists demonstrated on Saturday [April 6] at the former concentration camp Auschwitz to support the construction of a supermarket inside the 500-meter protection zone which UNESCO erected around the memorial site. In the last few weeks, the Polish government bowed to intense international pressure and stopped construction on the supermarket—against the wishes of the city government in Oswiecim. An earlier order to halt construction issued by Poland's Minister of Culture was ignored by local authorities.

Demonstrators carried banners with slogans such as “Jews Out Of The Government” and “Down With The European Union”. At a rally organized by various far-right parties, Jerzy Bartula of the National Party criticized “Jews from the other side of the ocean” who were seeking to halt the construction of the supermarket. Boleslaw Tejkowski of the National Association of Poland, the organizer of the protest, spoke of the “capitalist imperialism of the Jews” while at the same time warning of the “increasing strength of German Nazism”. The demonstrators were able to march unhindered through the gates of the death camp and onwards to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The head of the German-Polish corporation Maja, Janusz Marszalek, distanced himself from the action, which was held to show solidarity with his construction project. The company, which Ignatz Bubis [prominent Jewish leader in Germany—ATS] has described as “extremely right-wing conservative”, had been the subject of controversy in the past, particularly after it took control of the controversial Carmelite Nunnery on the memorial grounds and regularly unfurled anti-Semitic banners from its windows. Only after years of protest did the Pope finally order to nuns to move out. There is now an orphanage in the building. The construction of the supermarket is being touted as a social project, which German investor Georg Shreg claims will create jobs for local orphans. The former banker from Auerbach in Germany's Upper Pfalz region, who owns 49% of the project's stock, claimed to be surprised by the recent protests. But Shreg is quick to point out that he has not tried to make contacts with any Jewish or anti-fascist organizations.

The shopping center with supermarket and home supplies store will be located right next to the old factory building on the memorial site, which former Auschwitz detainees have demanded for years be torn down. Wladyslaw Bartoszewsky, former Foreign Minister of Poland and head of the international Museum Committee, has denied claims from investors and the Oswiecim city government that the memorial site's Museum Committee was given prior notice of the construction plans. Former detainees point out that the plan to build a supermarket is simply the most recent attempt to make the site more of a Christian and Polish nationalist memorial. The overwhelming majority of those killed in Auschwitz were Jews who had been deported to their destruction from German-occupied lands all across Europe.