[Congressional Bills 104th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 398 Introduced in House (IH)]

  2d Session
H. RES. 398

      Condemning the construction of a shopping center within the 
   internationally protected zone around the Auschwitz death camp in 
                                Poland.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 29, 1996

    Mr. Engel (for himself, Mr. Gilman, Mr. Nadler, Mr. Saxton, Mr. 
Deutsch, and Mr. McNulty) submitted the following resolution; which was 
          referred to the Committee on International Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
      Condemning the construction of a shopping center within the 
   internationally protected zone around the Auschwitz death camp in 
                                Poland.

Whereas approximately 1,500,000 innocent civilians, primarily Jews, but also 
        including Gypsies, political opponents of Nazism, Poles, homosexuals, 
        and others, were murdered at the Auschwitz death camp during World War 
        II;
Whereas the Auschwitz death camp memorializes the brutality of the Holocaust;
Whereas the Polish Government is a signatory to the 1972 United Nations 
        Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and National Heritage 
        pursuant to which the Auschwitz death camp was designated as an 
        ``historical site and a place of human testimony'' and an 
        internationally protected zone was established around the camp;
Whereas the Polish Government has a duty under international law to enforce a 
        1,600 foot protected zone around the perimeter of the Auschwitz death 
        camp in which commercial development is prohibited;
Whereas authorities in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim have granted a 
        building permit for the construction of a shopping center immediately 
        opposite the gate of the Auschwitz death camp;
Whereas Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and the coalition government of 
        Prime Minister Wlodziemierz Cimoszewicz have condemned the proposed 
        plan;
Whereas survivors of Auschwitz, Jewish leaders and organizations, and the State 
        of Israel strongly object to this enterprise;
Whereas construction of the shopping center has been suspended by Polish 
        President Aleksander Kwasniewski pending the report of a special fact-
        finding mission;
Whereas pressure from the international community and the Polish Government has 
        persuaded the largest employer in Oswiecim, Krak Chemia SA, to abandon 
        its plans to run the shopping center near the Auschwitz death camp; and
Whereas the service and trade enterprise that developed the plans for the 
        proposed shopping center, the Maja Foundation, has not decided whether 
        it will continue the development of this project: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) condemns in the strongest possible terms the 
        construction of the shopping center within the internationally 
        protected zone around the Auschwitz death camp as a violation 
        of international legal conventions signed by Poland and as a 
        trivialization and desecration of the site where more than 
        1,000,000 innocent people were murdered;
            (2) calls upon the Government of Poland to overrule local 
        authorities, comply with its international legal obligations, 
        and permanently halt commercial construction at the Auschwitz 
        death camp;
            (3) calls upon the Government of Poland to permanently 
        close the grounds within the internationally protected zone 
        around the Auschwitz death camp to any development;
            (4) recognizes the special nature of the Auschwitz death 
        camp and the sanctity of the ground upon which it rests; and
            (5) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to 
        convey a copy of this resolution to the President of Poland.
                                 <all>