It is acceptable for the Polish government to house its current criminals in Auschwitz-Birkenau

My dear, my very dear opponent, I thank you for this stimulating debate, but there's just one small issue... Perhaps Auschwitz-Birkenau isn't a place for children, My opponents whole argument relies on Auschwitz being ineffective at teaching our current generation about the holocaust. But Auschwitz is not meant for being a tool to teach children about the Holocaust, it is much to nuanced for that. Children should and must start at books, and the other many mediums of Holocaust education. Only when someone already has a true grasp of what went on in the Forgotten nights of Hitler's Europe should they visit the museum known as Auschwitz in Poland. Auschwitz is the epitome of realization about the holocaust, children under 16 are discouraged from attending, we simply cannot dumb it down to try and appeal to a wider audience, not just for moral issues but for the impossibility of doing anything but muddling and sensationalizing someone's image of the holocaust. Any attempts to re-create what happened would only muddle and distort Auschwitz's real message. The complexity of hundreds of years of racism, and the ignorance and apathy from the world leading up to the events would be lost by making this place a glorified theme park. Auschwitz has simply so much more to offer than the shallow display of cruelty my opponent proposes. The road to understanding Auschwitz is a gradual one-with a gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts, and above all, certainly not prisoner re-enactment. Point is, Auschwitz-Birkenau is not meant to be the source to generate interest in the Holocaust. It is completely true that it is the most famous and most macabre, but filling it with prisoners will detract from its ultimate message. Would undermine what it says about tolerance and social awareness and advocacy. We must teach that the crimes of the past are unacceptable, and must never be repeated, but what my opponent is proposing is just that-repeating the sins of our past. Whether or not it is in the attempt of education, the reality would be once again cries are ringing out in the night just as they did during the war, once again human suffering is thriving in that patch of forlorn dirt, and that ladies and gentlemen, is simply unacceptable. But let us say, let us say that Auschwitz is opened once again as a prison, and has a measure of effect, despite the amount of educated, elderly people that would cease to come in disgust. Let us assume the impossible idea that despite Jewish people being too scared or ashamed to visit, that the young managed to get past oohing and awing at this glorified zoo and entertainment t theatre, and managed to learn something. Let us assume that we tried to modernize something that has no place in modern society, and it worked to a degree, that hundreds of years of hate could be compressed and expressed by a couple of cruel acts, that they weren't so distracting because of their nature, that youth could learn something besides the fact that cruelty happened there. I ask you, how long until that became ineffective? How long until the next generation was so desensitized to what they saw, that they needed more visual aids to become in touch with Auschwitz-Birkenau? How long until the gas chamber had to be re-opened? How long before innocent Jewish children had to be thrown to the flames to teach youth about the holocaust? How long before we lost everything we tried to save? I have said in this short speech that Auschwitz is not meant as a resource to help youth connect to the holocaust, it is the end of the line of holocaust education, if children need that sort of stimuli they can watch Shindlers List. Prisoner re-enactment gives a false, shallow image of the real messages of Auschwitz and so much is lost in the process We cannot try to accommodate Auschwitz to the needs of the portion of our youth that is addicted to media-violence, it is not possible, it will be silly, fake, shallow and distracting to what really needs to be learnt The slippery slope of dumbing down Auschwitz not only loses its message, but will lead it to being used as a nefarious place once again Perhaps the ghostly silence of the dusty walks in Auschwitz-Birkenau is louder than the shriek of any man.