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Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Former Auschwitz commandant’s house to host antisemitism research center
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A house once inhabited by a Nazi commandant of the Auschwitz extermination camp will be turned into a research center fighting against antisemitism and extremism, a US non-profit says.
The former house of Rudolf Höss, the longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz camp, will open to the public on January 27, the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by the Red Army.
Since World War II, the house has belonged to a private owner, according to the media.
The “CEP (Counter Extremism Project) will transform the former Commandant’s House into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization (ARCHER),” the nonprofit says in a press release.
“The ordinary house of the greatest mass murderer will now be converted into the extraordinary symbol” of the fight against extremism and antisemitism, CEP’s Mark Wallace says.
Directly adjacent to the camp that has become a symbol of the Holocaust, the house with a large garden where Höss and his family lived was recently featured in Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning film “The Zone of Interest.”
The center will be designed and developed in collaboration with the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, best known for his work on the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
The Times of Israel Community.