The bright yellow Zoo Pet Shop is hard to miss for anyone driving along one of the main streets that leads to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum on the outskirts of Oswiecim, Poland.
The store has been in Tomasz Borowski’s family for nearly 30 years and he’s gotten used to answering questions about living and working just blocks away from one of the world’s most notorious landmarks. The Nazis killed more than one million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and 1945, including Mr. Borowski’s great-grandfather, Jan Jakuczek. He was an officer in the Polish army who was imprisoned and shot at Auschwitz in 1942 for organizing an armed insurrection against the German occupiers.
“When I was studying in Krakow a lot of people asked me, ‘Wow, do you live there?’ Everybody thinks it’s just only a museum and that’s all. They don’t know about Oswiecim,” he said.
Most people in Oswiecim have gotten used to living in the shadow of Auschwitz-Birkenau and watching visitors travel back and forth to the museum from Krakow, about an hour away. But there is resentment that this city of 40,000 has more than 800 years of history, and yet it’s only known for the five-year period during the Second World War.
“We have to remember that the Nazis could have created a death camp like this anywhere in Europe. It happened here, and we are now trying to combine the challenges that a typical modern city has with the remembrance of what happened here,” said Janusz Chwierut, the city’s mayor.
Mr. Chwierut was among dozens of local dignitaries who led the city’s commemoration on Jan. 27 to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In an interview he said the city has gone to great lengths to honour the memory of those who died. “But we also have to remember that the city has the right to develop.” The museum, he added, “has its own goals and own purposes, and the city of Oswiecim also has its own goals.”
Oswiecim once had a thriving Jewish community and before the war Jews made up roughly 60 per cent of the population. Only a handful of the city’s 8,000 Jews survived the Holocaust and the postwar Soviet rulers forced those who remained to leave.
There are plenty of attractions in the city for tourists who care to stick around. There’s a 16th-century castle, an ancient chapel, a Jewish museum and a market square full of restaurants.
But reminders of the camps are everywhere.
The city’s largest employer, the chemical company Synthos, was called IG Farbenindustrie A.G. during the war and used Auschwitz prisoners as slave labour. A sign near the museum also calls for compensation for people who lost their houses during the construction of the camps.
The city has also struggled to find ways to encourage commercial development without disrespecting the memory of those who died.
In 2000, the opening of a dance club called System caused an uproar. The club was located in an old leather factory about two kilometres from the museum. Critics argued the flashing lights, loud music and scantily clad dancers were inappropriate given the proximity to the site. The club shut down within months.
Last year, news that a community music festival would take place 1.3 kilometres from the museum drew critics. “Some have considered it a scandal that residents will be having fun a stone’s throw from a concentration camp,” an article in the local newspaper said at the time.
David Kennedy, a Polish-American who works at the International Youth Meeting Centre, said living in Oswiecim has always been a challenge. “I’ve had this question many times. Oh, how can people live around here? Don’t they know what happened?” he said. “It’s not that we want our town to be flooded with visitors. But at the same time there’s this discomfort when you meet somebody and they’re accusing you of trampling the sacred ground that is Auschwitz.”
The youth centre was built in the 1980s and was supposed to serve as a bridge between the museum and the city while educating young people about racism. But Mr. Kennedy said there’s still a disconnect between the two.
Tomasz Klimczak, who works at a neighbourhood cultural centre near the museum, finds the disconnect exasperating at times. “It’s normal life here,” he said explaining how Oswiecim is just like any other city. The culture centre has a small model of the city’s historic centre and Mr. Klimczak gives local bus tours. He said that in the past few years more visitors have been taking the tours and discovering Oswiecim. “Japanese, Germans, Italians, Canadians, from all over. Many, many people,” he said.
Hans-Jakob Schindler is director of the Counter Extremism Project, the new owners of the Höss house at the edge of the camp.
There is hope that the opening of a new centre to combat extremism will also bring more people to the city and break down barriers. The main part of the centre will be located in the former residence of Rudolf Höss, the Nazi commander of Auschwitz-Birkenau who lived in a house next to the camp for four years with his wife and five children.
Mr. Höss was a leading figure in Hitler’s plan to exterminate all Jews and he transformed Auschwitz-Birkenau into a sprawling complex. He tried to shield his children from the horror of the camps by clouding the glass in their top-floor bedrooms. But any open window would have brought the sounds of prisoners screaming and the smell of a nearby crematorium, said Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, which acquired the house last year. “There is no way that anyone who’s lived in this house would not understand what’s going on,” he added.
The CEP has bought a neighbouring property as well and plans to establish the Auschwitz Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization. Dr. Schindler said the centre will host regular conferences, seminars and events. “We hope, of course, that the centre will be another draw for the town,” he said.
Klaudia Pedrys grew up in Oswiecim and she wouldn’t live anywhere else. “I like this place because it’s calm, and very safe,” she said as she walked with friends near the train station. “When some people come to us they look like this,” she added making a shocked expression. “It’s okay. We’re used to it.”
Klaudia Pedrys, middle, says she enjoys life in Oswiecim, which has more to offer than just the museum.