Editing Extermination camp (section)

== Commemoration ==
In the post-war period the government of the [[People's Republic of Poland]] created [[monument]]s at the extermination camp sites. These early monuments mentioned no ethnic, religious, or national particulars of the Nazi victims. The extermination camps sites have been accessible to everyone in recent decades. They are popular destinations for visitors from all over the world, especially the most infamous Nazi death camp, Auschwitz near the town of [[Oświęcim]]. In the early 1990s, the Jewish Holocaust organisations debated with the Polish Catholic groups about "What religious symbols of martyrdom are appropriate as memorials in a Nazi death camp such as Auschwitz?" The Jews opposed the placement of Christian memorials such as the [[Auschwitz cross]] near Auschwitz I where mostly Poles were killed. The Jewish victims of the Holocaust were mostly killed at Auschwitz II Birkenau.

The [[March of the Living]] is organized in Poland annually since 1988.<ref name="motl">{{cite web| url=http://www.motl.org|website=motl.org|title= March of the Living International}}</ref> Marchers come from countries as diverse as [[Estonia]], [[New Zealand]], [[Panama]], and [[Turkey]].<ref name="marchoftheliving">{{cite web| website=motl.org| url=http://www.marchoftheliving.org |title=March of the Living Canada}}</ref>

=== The camps and Holocaust denial ===
{{see also|Holocaust denial}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C0509-0049-006, KZ Treblinka, Wehrmacht-Frachtbrief.jpg|thumb|upright|Documentary evidence: A {{lang|de|[[Reichsbahn]]}} [[consignment note]] for delivering prisoners ({{lang|de|Häftlinge}}) to [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]] in November 1943.]]

Holocaust deniers or [[Historical negationism|negationists]] are people and organizations who assert that the Holocaust did not occur, or that it did not occur in the historically recognized manner and extent.<ref name="mathis1">{{cite web|last1=Mathis|first1=Andrew E |title=Holocaust Denial: A Definition|url=http://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/denial/abc-clio/|publisher=ABC-CLIO|access-date=4 March 2017}}</ref> Holocaust deniers claim that the extermination camps were actually transit camps from which Jews were deported farther east. However, these theories are disproven by surviving German documents, which show that Jews were sent to the camps to be murdered.<ref name=Browning>{{cite web |last1=Browning |first1=Christopher |author-link1=Christopher Browning |title=Browning: Evidence for the Implementation of the Final Solution |url=https://www.hdot.org/browning/ |website=Holocaust Denial on Trial |access-date=5 June 2020}}</ref>

Extermination camp research is difficult because of extensive attempts by the SS and Nazi regime to conceal the existence of the extermination camps.<ref name = Arad_1984/> The existence of the extermination camps is firmly established by testimonies of camp survivors and Final Solution perpetrators, material evidence (the remaining camps, etc.), Nazi photographs and films of the killings, and camp administration records.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hobbs |first1=Joseph Patrick |title=Dear General: Eisenhower's Wartime Letters to Marshall |date= 1999|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore|isbn=0801862191}}</ref><ref name="mdlShoah">{{cite web|url=http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/index.php/en/archives-and-documentation/the-cdjc-catalogue/the-history-of-the-center-of-contemporary-jewish-documentation-cdjc |title=The History of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316150400/http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/index.php/en/archives-and-documentation/the-cdjc-catalogue/the-history-of-the-center-of-contemporary-jewish-documentation-cdjc |archive-date=16 March 2015}}</ref>

=== Awareness ===
In 2017 a [[Körber Foundation]] survey found that 40 percent of 14-year-olds in Germany did not know what [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] was.<ref>{{cite news |title=Auschwitz-Birkenau: 4 out of 10 German students don't know what it was |url=https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |publisher=Deutsche Welle |date=28 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928204158/https://www.dw.com/en/auschwitz-birkenau-4-out-of-10-german-students-dont-know-what-it-was/a-40734980 |archive-date=28 September 2017|url-status = live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Posener | first=Alan |author-link=Alan Posener |title=German TV Is Sanitizing History |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/dont-mention-the-war-germany-television-holocaust-anti-semitism-babylon-berlin-europe/ |work=[[Foreign Policy]] |date=9 April 2018}}</ref> A 2018 survey organized in the United States by the [[Claims Conference]], [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]], and others found that 66 percent of the American [[millennials]] who were surveyed (and 41 percent of all U.S. adults) did not know what Auschwitz was.<ref>{{cite news |title=New Survey by Claims Conference Finds Significant Lack of Holocaust Knowledge in the United States |url=http://www.claimscon.org/study |publisher=Claims Conference |date=2018|archive-url=https://archive.today/20180412152716/http://www.claimscon.org/study|archive-date=12 April 2018|url-status=live}}{{pb}}
{{cite news |last1=Astor |first1=Maggie |title=Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |work=The New York Times |date=12 April 2018 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20180418071414/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/holocaust-education.html |archive-date=18 April 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2019, a survey of 1,100 Canadians found that 49 percent of them could not name any of the Nazi camps which were located in [[German-occupied Europe]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Stober |first1=Eric |title=Nearly half of Canadians can't name a single concentration camp: survey |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/4893788/holocaust-survey-canada/ |publisher=Global News |date=26 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190127053753/https://globalnews.ca/news/4893788/holocaust-survey-canada/ |archive-date=27 January 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>