Art News

Poland, US museum tussle over Auschwitz barracks

WARSAW (AP).- Polish and U.S. officials are engaged in intense talks to determine the fate of a sensitive object: a barrack that once housed doomed prisoners at the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp and is now on display at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Poland is demanding the return of the artifact, which has been on loan to the Washington museum for more than 20 years and is an important object in its permanent exhibition. But the U.S. museum is resisting the demand, saying the valuable object shouldn’t be moved partly because it is too fragile. “Due to the barrack’s size and the complexity of its installation, removing and transporting it to Poland presents special difficulties, including potentially damaging the artifact,” the U.S. Holocaust museum said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Both the Museum and our Polish partners have been actively