Five companies that leased warehouse space on the grounds of the former Auschwitz death camp have been instructed to remove their signs from the perimeter fence. But the change is only cosmetic.
Jerzy Wroblewski, director of the Auschwitz Museum, said the signs violated the agreements signed by the companies when they leased the property. But their removal does not end commercial exploitation of the site described as the graveyard of European Jewry.
Auschwitz is visited by thousands of tourists each year. But the signs, including one for a brewery, were made public here only last week by the secretary-general of the European Jewish Congress, Serge Cwajgenbaum, who had just returned from a visit to Poland, where he took photographs at Auschwitz.
They showed, among other things, that the controversial convent maintained by the Carmelite order has been renovated and expanded.
Although the nuns are supposed to be relocated off the Auschwitz grounds, there are no signs that the nuns are preparing to move.
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