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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Ryan Geertsma.
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And I'm Christy Van Aaragon. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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All around the world, people work to preserve the memories of people, places, and events. We create memorials to honor and remember people or events. We save and protect places where those events happened.
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We protect ancient buildings like the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge in England. We keep the childhood houses of famous musicians, writers, and politicians in good condition. Famous places like churches and castles are fixed and saved for many years.
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There are many reasons we preserve places from our history. Most memories are shared through spoken and written stories. But we preserve places and create memorials so that people for many generations can see them. Even a person who does not know the history can visit the memorial to hear and experience the story. This is one way we keep memories alive.
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These places or events are memories of a whole community. And they are preserved so that the community memory can be passed to the coming generations. Alexander Trapeznik wrote an article on this subject for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Pouhere Taonga. In it he describes what these memorials and preserved places do for a community.
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"Shared stories connect us. They make it possible for us to celebrate and honour past achievements and sacrifices. Plaques, monuments, or historic buildings suggest shared beliefs and values. And they provide a message considered important enough to be permanent, preserved to praise and defend past actions."
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We hope that by saving these physical memories people will remember the past. We hope they will help us celebrate the good events. And, we hope they will help us remember what happened so that we do not repeat the bad events. But should we always preserve physical places of our history?
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This question is being asked right now about Auschwitz-Birkenau, a concentration camp and death camp from World War Two. Auschwitz-Birkenau is in the country of Poland. When the Nazi German army took control of Poland, they established this camp as a place to bring the people who resisted their control.
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This concentration camp was a place of pain and death. The Nazis forced the prisoners to work for them. They did not give the prisoners enough food. Many people died from the work. But the Nazis also killed thousands of men, women, and children in gas chambers. Once the people were in the room, the guards closed the doors and the room filled with poisonous gas. They killed millions of people in concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau. This time is called the Holocaust.
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Since the end of World War Two, the country of Poland has preserved the land and buildings at Auschwitz-Birkenau. A few buildings still exist. The gas chambers are only ruins. But, people from all over the world still come to visit the camp. Hearing the terrible stories about this place is powerful. But seeing the living conditions and gas chambers makes the stories real for people. It changes how they think about the events of that time.
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Fiona Bell is a history teacher in Wales. She took her students to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau when they studied World War Two. In an interview with the website Wales Online, she shared the important lessons she hoped her students would learn through this visit.
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"The study trip was important. There are still people who deny the Holocaust happened. Visits to the death camps of Europe provide chances of opposing this disbelief. Even more, the historical sites we visited, such as those at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, gave students a chance to consider the effects of hatred. Such consideration is important for all people living in the 21st Century."
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Hundreds of thousands of people visit Auschwitz-Birkenau every year. But when the camp was built by the Nazis in 1941, it was not built to last. Today, the buildings are falling apart. But preserving the camp would cost a lot of money. Some people question if this work is necessary. They ask if it would be better to end the work of preservation, and let nature take over the land again.
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The BBC talked to two experts, one from each side of the debate. Robert Jan Van Pelt is a professor in Canada. He has also written several books about Auschwitz. Robert thinks that preserving the camp is important for people who survived life in the camp. However, he thinks that once there are no more survivors, the camp should be left alone. Then nature can destroy the remains. He told the BBC,
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"It may be that we will agree that the best way to honor those who were murdered in the camp and those who survived is by closing it from the world, letting grass and roots cover, weaken, and finally destroy that most unnatural creation of Man. At that future date, may the slow decay suggest the final disappearance of memory."
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Wladyslaw Bartoszewski is a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. He was a prisoner during World War Two. Now, he works with the International Auschwitz Council. He thinks Auschwitz-Birkenau should be preserved. He thinks that it is the world's responsibility to save these places so that future generations will know the truth about what happened. He told the BBC,
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"It lies in the nature of man that when no physical evidence remains, events of the past fall into nothingness."
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Wladyslaw fears that if Auschwitz-Birkenau is not preserved the world will forget all the horrible things that happened there. He fears that forgetting may permit similar horrible events to happen in the future. He expressed this fear to the BBC.
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"I hope to be a false prophet in saying that, but if we permit Auschwitz-Birkenau to disappear from the face of the Earth, we may just be opening a way for a similar evil to return."
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It can be very difficult to decide which pieces of history to preserve and which pieces to let die away. What do you think? Should Auschwitz-Birkenau be preserved for future generations, even if it costs a lot of money? Or would it be better to permit nature to destroy it so that the physical memories of the horrible events disappear too? You can e-mail us your opinion at radio @ english . net.
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