Source: European Parliament
10.10.2024
Priority question for written answer P-002018/2024
to the Commission
Rule 144
Arkadiusz Mularczyk (ECR)
Nazi Germany established its largest extermination camps in occupied Poland. For decades, the responsibility for preserving and maintaining these camps fell on the Polish people. To date, the cost of maintaining these sites has far exceeded the total compensation Germany paid to Polish victims of the Nazi-German occupation.
Memorial sites of former Nazi-German concentration camps and forced labour camps are currently funded by the budgets of the countries in which they are located, e.g. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibór, Gross-Rosen, Stutthof, Płaszów and many others. The victim states of World War II have the financial responsibility for preserving and maintaining these sites, despite them having been established by Nazi Germany.
It seems unjust for the victim states to bear the entire cost of preserving these sites.
In reference to Parliament’s resolution of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe[1], specifically point 12, I would like to ask:
- 1.Will the Commission support Poland and other World War II victim states in seeking funding to maintain the memorial sites of former Nazi-German concentration camps from the states that established them?
- 2.Can the Commission clarify its stance on this issue?
Submitted: 10.10.2024
- [1] OJ C 171, 6.5.2021, p. 25.