Faced with growing protests by Jews, Gypsies and others, the state-run company charged with privatizing the economy of former East Germany said Wednesday it would halt the extraction of gypsum from a hill near the site of the former Dora-Nordhausen labor camp.
The Treuhand company announced in Berlin that it would put off plans to sell the area to a Munich-based mining company until a satisfactory arrangement could be found.
The government of the federal state of Thuringia said it was working on a compromise that would allow for economic exploitation of the area while still preserving the site as a memorial.
The former labor camp and its underground factory, where the V-2 rockets used against Britain were produced, is situated near the town of Nordhausen.
A Nordhausen official, Tilo Grosse, warned last week that the proposed sale would all but destroy any hope of creating a memorial at the site.
Nordhausen’s cultural office has meanwhile drawn up plans to turn the former factory into a permanent exhibit on slave laborers.
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