Free Dina’s Art

UNESCO Criterion under which Auschwitz enjoys “World Heritage” Status.

“Criterion (vi): be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal value.”

“Auschwitz – Birkenau, monument to the deliberate genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime (Germany 1933-1945) and to the deaths of countless others bears irrefutable evidence to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit which in appalling conditions of adversity resisted the efforts of the German Nazi regime to suppress freedom and free thought and to wipe out whole races. The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind for the holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.”
source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31

Does anyone else see a source of cognitive dissonance in juxtaposition of the denial of human dignity experienced by Dina Babbitt as she was arbitrarily deprived of her property by the International Auschwitz Committee, with the spectacular display of Olympic-calibre rhetorical gymnastics in the above paragraph?

The shabbiest of behaviours can be dressed in the noblest of words; the naked truth is that the denial of respect for #61016’s Human Rights and Dignity constitutes the active and deliberate continuation of treatment she has received at the hands of all Auschwitz officials since Dina Gottliebova was first assigned a number in 1943.

I strongly disapprove of this.

I believe UNESCO needs to reconsider Auschwitz’s status as a World Heritage Site in light of the IAC’s ongoing violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_UNESCO_World_Heritage_Sites