Polish leaders denounce disco opened near Auschwitz

The disco, opened in August, is situated in the town of Oswiecim, about a mile from the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where the Nazis killed nearly 1.5 million people, most of them Jews.

Authorities there consented at the time to the disco, saying the building was outside a zone where activities that could be offensive to the memory of concentration camp victims are prohibited.

But the disco is situated in a former tannery where the Nazis employed slave laborers and where luggage and clothes brought to Auschwitz by its victims were sorted. Since the war, these buildings have been used as industrial plants, wholesalers and a shoe shop.

Jewish groups and others have protested the establishment of the disco, which is located next door to a German-run International Youth Meeting Center.

The center hosts young people visiting the Auschwitz camp and also hosts seminars and meetings on Holocaust-related topics.

Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a Righteous Gentile and Auschwitz survivor who heads the International Auschwitz Council, issued a statement saying he was "astonished" that the disco was approved "without consulting historians, and against the wishes of the provincial governor."

The disco's owners took a wait-and-see attitude following the government statement.

A spokesman for the owners said the pressure was "unjustified" and noted that the disco was located well away from the Auschwitz camp and outside the protected zone.

"Oswiecim is a place where normal people live and want to have normal lives," said Zdzislaw Bieniek.

However, he added that the owners may eventually bow to government pressure.