After 14 years of discussions, six countries of the former Yugoslavia have finally agreed to renovate Building 17 of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where nearly 20,000 Yugoslav deportees lived during World War II. UNESCO announced this on Thursday.
Representatives of Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Slovenia were present on Thursday to ratify this “historic agreement” at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
“Today, 14 years of diplomatic negotiations have finally come to fruition,” said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO. He praised the agreement, which “fills a void in the place where these atrocities took place.”
Building 17 of the former Auschwitz I camp was built in 1941. Most of the 20,000 deportees from Yugoslavia remained there. The first meeting on renovating the site was held in 2010. But the talks were postponed due to “changes in government, periods of calm and moments of tension” between the former Yugoslav countries, a UNESCO diplomat said.
The agreement comes ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, January 27.
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