Abstract

Over the past 20 years the Polish town of Owicim, the site of the most infamous death camp, has seen a series of well-publicised disputes over land use around the Auschwitz Museum. Each of these disputes has featured certain groups making certain claims for the 'appropriate' use of land. The public's perception outside Poland of these disputes has been guided by Jewish groups prioritising their claims above all others. There has been a failure to recognise how far Polish claims are rooted in other equally valid moral geographies, not least those shaped both by Polish Catholic and communist traditions.