Renovating Auschwitz

Oswiecim, Poland

The International Auschwitz Council agreed this week to renovate parts of the infamous Nazi death camp. Until now, the site had been kept just as it was when the Allies liberated the camp at the end of World War II. But more than 60 years later, two of the gas chambers are sinking into the ground. "We have to preserve without reconstruction," said Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. "We must decide to do this if we want to be able to see these gas chambers in 20 years." The council, made up of Holocaust survivors, academics, and religious leaders, also recommended modernizing the museum exhibitions at the site.