Gordon Brown responds to plea from Poland for help with the conservation of the former extermination camp
The British government is to fund crucial maintenance work at Auschwitz-Birkenau to help halt the deterioration of the crumbling former concentration camp. Gordon Brown is responding to a plea made by the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, for the international community to help with the conservation of the camp, which is nearly 70 years old.
In February Tusk wrote to European leaders calling for the creation of a €120m pot to pay for the upkeep of the site. Today Brown was making his first visit to the two sites of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
In a book of condolence at Auschwitz, Brown was expected to write: "In this place of desolation I reaffirm my belief that we all have a duty. Each and every one of us, not to stand by but to stand up against discrimination."
Auschwitz was built as a Polish army barracks in 1940 but adapted to become a concentration camp shortly afterwards. Birkenau was established 3km away as a death camp, and it is thought that more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed there. The two camps were merged in 1942 becoming the Nazi's largest camp.
At the moment the Polish government shoulders the burden of the funding for site maintenance and the running of its museums, directly funding half the required 20 million zloty (£4m) with unreliable tourism revenue making up the rest. In the immediate aftermath of the second world war the museum was involved in repairing buildings. These had been destroyed by the Nazis in an attempt to remove incriminating evidence in the face of Red Army advances.
Though Brown said today the UK will provide funding for this site, government aides were unable to say how much or when. Speaking ahead of his visit to Auschwitz, Brown told a press conference: "We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz."
As chancellor in 2005 Brown made funding available to send two teenagers from every British secondary school to visit Auschwitz annually. The funding for this has now been extended to 2011. Future government plans include the creation of a new award to recognise those Britons who helped protect Jews during the second world war.
Guardian
Showing posts with label Donald Tusk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Tusk. Show all posts
April 28, 2009
October 23, 2007
Poland rejects populism and xenophobia in favour of pro-Europe liberal conservatives
· Tusk government aims to join euro within five years
· Defeated leader's twin retains veto as president
Poland yesterday stepped into a new era of greater European integration, more influence abroad, and more tolerance and liberty at home in the wake of a surprisingly solid election victory by the post-Solidarity liberal conservatives of Donald Tusk's Civic Platform.
"A Platform Triumph", read the huge frontpage headline on the country's bestselling newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, celebrating the demise of the two-year experiment in isolationism, nationalism, and intolerance engineered by the outgoing prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and twin brother Lech who remains in office as president until 2010.
"It was a plebiscite," wrote Stanislaw Kurski, the paper's deputy editor. "The Poles rejected populism, fear, and the playing of one social group against another. They rejected megalomania, arrogance, and anti-German phobias. They rejected blackmail, snooping, and provocation."
Sunday's turnout of almost 54% was the highest since the beginning of the modern democratic era in 1989, indicating Poles' awareness of the high stakes; Mr Tusk's Platform, taking 42% of the vote, fared better than any single party since 1989; where two extremist parties took 18% of the vote only two years ago, on Sunday they mustered merely 3% between them and failed to enter parliament.
The result puts Polish politics in the most coherent shape ever. The new parliament will see the dominant liberal conservatives with more than 40%, Mr Kaczynski's nationalist populism with around one third, and centre-left social democrats and former communists with 13%.
After a year in which Mr Kaczynski repeatedly sought to block and veto EU policy-making and made Polish diplomacy the laughing stock of the continent, the Tusk camp yesterday promptly signalled a sea change. Poland will be the first country to ratify the EU's new reform treaty, pledged Bronislaw Komorowski, a Platform deputy leader, while José Manuel Barroso, the European commission chief, singled out the "European spirit" of the Polish electorate. The new government will also loosen Mr Kaczynski's welfarism, embrace the free market, and pursue tighter fiscal policies aimed at entering the euro single currency within five years.
Mr Tusk is expected to form a coalition with the small Peasants' party which took 9% of the vote. Between them they will have a comfortable majority of 240 seats in the 460-seat Sejm or lower house. That, however, is less than the 60% they need to override vetoes on government legislation by President Kaczynski who can be expected to try to make life difficult for the new government.
Mr Komorowski also said a priority was to construct as broad as possible a coalition to defeat any Kaczynski vetoes, meaning that Mr Tusk is likely to offer the centre-left something in return for support.
Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, director of Warsaw's institute of public affairs, says that prime minister Kaczynski's model for Poland was Israel. He sought to turn Poland into a combative, nationalist, and aggressive place ruled by a siege mentality, surrounded by perceived enemies, and utterly committed to the closest possible security relationship with Washington.
Mr Tusk will be more demanding of the US and keen to reach a much smoother modus operandi with Berlin.
But senior Platform figures, such as Jan Rokita or Radek Sikorski, are also critical of the EU and hostile to Moscow. Mr Sikorski, tipped to be the new foreign minister, is pro-America but increasingly critical of the Bush administration and demands that the Pentagon supply Poland with $1bn (£492m) worth of missiles in return for being allowed to deploy its missile defence facilities in north-west Poland.
Mr Kaczynski has been a highly divisive figure and on Sunday became a casualty of his own talent for confrontation and polarisation. His power base is the small town and the countryside, the elderly, the less educated and the poor. On Sunday Poland's burgeoning middle class, the young, the successful, the cities, took revenge.
Guardian
· Defeated leader's twin retains veto as president
Poland yesterday stepped into a new era of greater European integration, more influence abroad, and more tolerance and liberty at home in the wake of a surprisingly solid election victory by the post-Solidarity liberal conservatives of Donald Tusk's Civic Platform.
"A Platform Triumph", read the huge frontpage headline on the country's bestselling newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, celebrating the demise of the two-year experiment in isolationism, nationalism, and intolerance engineered by the outgoing prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and twin brother Lech who remains in office as president until 2010.
"It was a plebiscite," wrote Stanislaw Kurski, the paper's deputy editor. "The Poles rejected populism, fear, and the playing of one social group against another. They rejected megalomania, arrogance, and anti-German phobias. They rejected blackmail, snooping, and provocation."
Sunday's turnout of almost 54% was the highest since the beginning of the modern democratic era in 1989, indicating Poles' awareness of the high stakes; Mr Tusk's Platform, taking 42% of the vote, fared better than any single party since 1989; where two extremist parties took 18% of the vote only two years ago, on Sunday they mustered merely 3% between them and failed to enter parliament.
The result puts Polish politics in the most coherent shape ever. The new parliament will see the dominant liberal conservatives with more than 40%, Mr Kaczynski's nationalist populism with around one third, and centre-left social democrats and former communists with 13%.
After a year in which Mr Kaczynski repeatedly sought to block and veto EU policy-making and made Polish diplomacy the laughing stock of the continent, the Tusk camp yesterday promptly signalled a sea change. Poland will be the first country to ratify the EU's new reform treaty, pledged Bronislaw Komorowski, a Platform deputy leader, while José Manuel Barroso, the European commission chief, singled out the "European spirit" of the Polish electorate. The new government will also loosen Mr Kaczynski's welfarism, embrace the free market, and pursue tighter fiscal policies aimed at entering the euro single currency within five years.
Mr Tusk is expected to form a coalition with the small Peasants' party which took 9% of the vote. Between them they will have a comfortable majority of 240 seats in the 460-seat Sejm or lower house. That, however, is less than the 60% they need to override vetoes on government legislation by President Kaczynski who can be expected to try to make life difficult for the new government.
Mr Komorowski also said a priority was to construct as broad as possible a coalition to defeat any Kaczynski vetoes, meaning that Mr Tusk is likely to offer the centre-left something in return for support.
Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, director of Warsaw's institute of public affairs, says that prime minister Kaczynski's model for Poland was Israel. He sought to turn Poland into a combative, nationalist, and aggressive place ruled by a siege mentality, surrounded by perceived enemies, and utterly committed to the closest possible security relationship with Washington.
Mr Tusk will be more demanding of the US and keen to reach a much smoother modus operandi with Berlin.
But senior Platform figures, such as Jan Rokita or Radek Sikorski, are also critical of the EU and hostile to Moscow. Mr Sikorski, tipped to be the new foreign minister, is pro-America but increasingly critical of the Bush administration and demands that the Pentagon supply Poland with $1bn (£492m) worth of missiles in return for being allowed to deploy its missile defence facilities in north-west Poland.
Mr Kaczynski has been a highly divisive figure and on Sunday became a casualty of his own talent for confrontation and polarisation. His power base is the small town and the countryside, the elderly, the less educated and the poor. On Sunday Poland's burgeoning middle class, the young, the successful, the cities, took revenge.
Guardian
Labels:
Civic Platform,
Donald Tusk,
Kaczynski,
Poland
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