Auschwitz Museum embraces Facebook

The Auschwitz memorial museum is looking to Facebook to help it reach the world's youth in an effort to engage them in conversations about the site and the Holocaust.

The memorial museum at Auschwitz launched a new Facebook page earlier this week, attracting - at last check - more than 4,900 fans and growing by the second. Many subscribers have left messages on the "wall" stating "Never forget" and other sentiments in a multitude of languages. In an interview with Associated Press, memorial spokesman Pawel Sawicki said, "This is a kind of an experiment. Facebook is the tool that young people are using to communicate, so if we want to reach them, we should be using their tool." This move follows a Polish-language YouTube page at the end of 2008 and an English language equivalent just two months ago. The concentration camp, which was built by the Nazis in occupied Poland, was in operation from 1940 - 1945. Approximately 1 million people, including the Polish, gypsies, Soviet prisoners-of-war, Jehovah's Witnesses, other ethnic groups, and mostly Jews, were killed at the camp or died from starvation, disease and forced labor. Other Holocaust related groups are already present on the popular social networking site. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has an official page and Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has launched an unofficial page, but is developing an official page to be launched within a few weeks.