The Michigan Daily-Monday, February 19,1990 - Page 3
Curators
aim to
preserve
Auschwitz
OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) -
If the masses of human hair turn
matted and the piles of inmates'
shoes fall apart, museum conser-
vators wonder how future genera-
tions will know the horror of the
Auschwitz concentration camp.
Alarmed by the worsening con-
dition of the barracks, gas cham-
bers, crematoria and archives of
victims' belongings, a team of
'Western specialists has volun-
teered to map out a preservation
:effort that could cost up to $40
million.
The Culture Ministry of the
new non-Communist Polish gov-
: ernment also has formed a com-
mission to change the 35 year-old
,museum exhibition, which high-
lights the Soviet army's liberation
,of the camp but mentions the
Holocaust only in passing.
"If nothing is done, in 10 or 20
years, this site will be practically
:non-existent," said Frank Reiss,
vice president of the New York-
based Ronald S. Lauder Founda-
tion. "It is falling apart. It is in
:urgent need of repair."
The foundation struck an
agreement with the government-
yrun museum to provide technical
;advice and raise funds for the
preservation. It sent a team of ex-
perts, including the chief conserva-
tor from New York's Metropolitan
Nicaragua' s
UNO
party holds last rally
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) -
Tens of thousands of opposition
supporters waving blue-and-white
flags gathered yesterday for their last
rally before next week's elections to
decide whether the Sandinistas will
remain in power.
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the
presidential candidate of the 14-party
United National Opposition (UNO)
is challenging President Daniel
Ortega for a six-year term.
The U.S.-backed UNO coalition
is the strongest rival to the Sandin-
istas in the Feb. 25 general elec-
tions, but most public opinion polls
show it lagging behind the ruling
party. Sandinistas hold their final
rally in Managua on Wednesday.
Mrs. Chamorro is publisher of
the opposition newspaper La Prensa
and widow of Pedro Joaquin
Chamorro, a civic leader whose
memory is revered by all sides of the
Nicaraguan political spectrum.
She was scheduled to address the
rally to end UNO's campaign. She
promises economic recovery and a
more conservative administration.
Approximately .7 million
Nicaraguans, nearly half of the popu-
lation of about 3.8 million, have
registered to vote in the elections for
president and vice president, National
Assembly, 144 municipal councils
and two regional councils on the re-
mote Atlantic coast.
There were unconfirmed reports
of authorities stopping a UNO cara-
van from leaving the northern town
of Matagalpa on its way to Managua
and of police barring trucks carrying
UNO supporters from entering the
capital.
Both complaints were broadcast
on Radio Corporacion, one of 11 ra-
dio stations nationwide transmitting
in tandem for the rally. The Sandin-
ista government controls the major-
ity of Nicaraguan radio stations.
However, dozens of trucks from
outlying districts began arriving in
Managua at dawn and continued to
come in at mid-morning, jamming
some of the main avenues.
Young women wearing UNO T-
shirts clustered at street corners hand-
ing out the alliance's blue-and-white
plastic flags to passing motorists.
"What do the people want?" the
young women asked, and UNO sup-
porters in passing trucks answered:
"For the (Sandinista) Front to
leave!" a UNO slogan that rhymes in
Spanish.
The rally was staged in the Plaza
of the Revolution, named for the
1979 popular uprising that ousted
U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio So-
moza and allowed the Sandinistas to
take power. But UNO has been call-
ing it "Plaza of the Republic," its
previous name.
International observers were out
in force throughout Managua. More
than 1,000 have been accredited.
Police in riot gear fanned out
around the city to prevent distur-
bances. Interior Minister Tomas
Borge in campaign speeches has ac-
cused UNO of planning to stage vio-
lent acts, purportedly to mar the
elections.
AP Photo
American museum conservators and a private foundation are working
with Polish counterparts to preserve the ruins of the Auschwitz
concentration camp complex as an ongoing memorial to the millions
killed there by the Nazis.
Museum of Art, to assess the
damage in December.
"The tens of thousands of pairs
of shoes...if you touch them they
fall to dust," Reiss said. "The ru-
ins of the gas chambers...they
have to be preserved - but as ru-
ins, not put back together Holly-
wood style."
Nazi Germany built the
Auschwitz concentration camp and
the adjacent Birkenau death camp
in southern Poland to carry out
Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution."
Estimates of the number of people
killed there range to 4 million,
mostly Jews from across Europe.
Victims also included Gypsies,
homosexuals and political prison-
ers.
Partly demolished as the Red
Army approached, Auschwitz was
liberated on Jan. 27, 1945. The
camp remains much as it was left:
the sign reading in German "Work
Makes You Free" above the gates,
the train tracks bisecting the vast
expanse of Birkenau and ending
feet from its destroyed crematoria.
Pollution and a rainy climate
also make things worse, Smolen
said.
Students stage skit on Diag
to support rain forests
Automakers look to cut costs
DETROIT (AP) - U.S. auto
companies that learned to make bet-
ter cars are scrambling to build them
for less, and companies that make
the dashboards and driveshafts are
feeling the pressure.
Automakers are in a profit
crunch, unable to raise prices or cut
incentives when a sluggish economy
already has buyers slow to deal.
The only other way to boost prof-
its is cut costs, and the makers ex-
pect suppliers that sell them
bumpers and door panels to do their
part.
"Production schedules are down
20-plus percent in the first quarter,"
said James Paper, auto analyst with
Kirkpatrick, Pettis and Polian in
Omaha.
"Hopefully they'll pick up again,
but in the meantime, the automakers
are going to the suppliers and saying
'Hey, you've got to suffer, too.' You
share in the good times and you
share in the bad times," Paper said.
For the automakers, push has
come to shove, Chrysler Corp., in
the midst of a program to cut costs
by $1.5 billion, said last week that
job cuts and plant closings caused
much of its two-thirds decline in
1989 profits.
Ford Motor Co. said its 1989
profits dropped 27.6 -percent and
General Motors Corp. earnings fell
13.1 percent for the year.
by Geri Alumit
About twenty students adorned
with branches and capering about
like monkeys to the tune of bongo
drums, staged a theatrical skit on the
Diag last Friday to raise awareness
about rain forest deforestation.
The Rain Forest Action Move-
ment (R.A.M) - a campus-com-
munity organization which was
stated three years ago by a group of
students - organized the skit. The
local group is an affiliate of the na-
tional R.A.M.
"One of our objectives is to fo-
cus on what we can do as citizens in
the U.S. to help this problem be-
cause we contribute to it indirectly
and we can influence what happens
by what we do," said Christine
Housel, committee head of the skit
and a junior in the school of natural
resources.
In the skit the harmony of a jun-
gle was broken by a student equipped
with a vrooming chain saw, progres-
sively dicing down the trees. The
bodies of severed trees and indige-
nous people were carried off by a
human bulldozer, leaving just one
tree standing. After a few moments
of loneliness, a band of students
clutching signs surrounded the tree
yelling, "Help Save the Rain
forests!"
One observer, Al Kaul, an LSA
junior said, "This is exciting. People
are walking through the Diag and
taking the time to see what's going
on because it's not one of those
commonplace lectures."
R.A.M. performed the skit four
times during the noon hour.
R.A.M. distributes newsletters
and sponsors speakers to educate the
community about environmental is-
sues. The group also holds various
fundraisers, which help buy rain for-
est land and support international
conservation organizations.
Housel said "these programs
work to help countries sustainably
use their land so that they can use
their rain forests and protect them at
the same time."
'One of our objectives
is to focus on what we
can do as citizens in
the U.S. to help this
problem because we
contribute to it indi-
rectly and we can in-
fluence what happens
by what we do'
-Christine Housel
R.A.M committee head
Recently R.A.M. sponsored a
benefit concert, R.A.M. JAM, that
raised $2,500. The money was di-
vided between a temperate rain forest
protection group and a tropical rain
forest conservation group.
" Suspected crime boss claims he bribed
politicians
CHICAGO (AP) - The city of
Al Capone and feisty politics has
been abuzz for a week over claims
bjy a suspected crime boss that the
mob bribed local politicians and
even helped engineer Mayor Richard
IDaley's election last year.
' Cook County Republican Party
Chair James Dvorak is at the un-
comfortable center of the controversy
over allegations that he was paid
thousands of mob dollars in bribes.
IIe and others hit by the tape-
recorded allegations, including his
one-time boss, Sheriff James
O'Grady, deny the claims.
There also are questions about
why federal prosecutors would let
explosive taped allegations against
known officials by played in open
court with no advance notice, little
follow-up and, to date, no criminal
charges filed.
The tapes dominated local news-
casts and had wide play in Chicago's
two largest daily newspapers- the
Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-
Times. Tribune columnist Mike
Royko, thought a longtime critic of
politicians, said the feds' tactics were
unfair.
"It seems to me that the federal
prosecutors, out of fairness, should
do something more than play a tape
that causes a media uproar, then
clam up," wrote the Pulitzer Prize-
winning commentator.
"It's great fun for the news busi-
ness and for the political enemies of
those mentioned on the tape,"
Royko wrote. "But I didn't know
that the Justice Department believed
in trial by a jury of gossip column
items."
Ira Raphaelson, acting U.S. at-
torney, declined to comment on the
tapes' release.
The story began with a continu-
ing federal probe into organized
crime that yielded indictments of 20
people and allegations that they used
murder, other violence and threats to
run a gambling operation.
U.S. Attorney General Dick
Thornburgh jetted in to announce the
busts in a Feb. 7 news conference,
calling the operation one of the
largest crackdowns ever on organized
crime in Chicago.
That generated some interest, but
nothing like the detention hearing
two days later that sent politicians
scrambling to clear their names.
At that hearing, prosecutors
played a secretly recorded conversa-
tion of Rocco Infelise, a reputed
mob gambling boss, in which he
talked about payoffs to officials and
about influencing the last Chicago
mayoral race.
In the Sept. 14 conversation with
William Jahoda, a bookie-turned-in-
formant who was wearing a "wire,"
Infelise said he had been making
$35,000 in monthly payoffs to po-
lice and officials. Included, he said,
was $10,000 a month to the sheriff's
office.
"I lay out $35,000 a month for
guys that are away and the coppers,"
Infelise said on the tape. "Between
you and I, ten goes to the sheriff."
Dvorak denied the allegations, as
did O'Grady. "If this were true, I
would be in Argentina right now,
not before you," Dvorak said at a
news conference.
Correction
Monday's article on meal credit reform incorrectly attributed the quotation
lieginning "We've talked to people in both Housing and Student Services...,
Jpe Sciarotta made the statement.
THE LIST
What's happening in Ann Arbor today
Faculty to hold
annual Senate
meeting toay
by Donna Woodwell
Daily Faculty Reporter
Meetings
UM Taekwondo Club -
beginners welcome 7-8:30 p.m.
2275 CCRB
UM Shorin-Ryu Karate-do
Club - beginners welcome 7:30-
8:30 p.m. in the CCRB small
gym
Asian American Association -
general meeting and sexuality
workshop at 7 p.m. in the Trotter
House
Speakers
"Jose Donoso and the
Subversion of Childhood" -
Sarah King speaks at 5 p.m. in
the 4th floor Commons of the
MLB
"Seeing Narratives: Ancient
Art, Renaissance Eyes" -
Leonard Barkan speaks at 3 p.m.
in the E. Lecture Hall, 3rd floor of
Rackham
"Onward! Onward! Onward!
as Theatre and Politics" - a
Furthermore
Free Tutoring - for all lower
level science and engineering
courses; 8-10 p.m. in UGLi Rm.
307
Safewalk - the night-time safety
walking service is available from
8 p.m.-1:30a.m. in UGLi Rm.
102 or call 936-1000
Northwalk - the north-campus
night-time walking service is
available from 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m.
in Bursley 2333 or call 763-
WALK
ECB Peer Writing Tutors -
peer writing tutors available for
help on papers 7-11 p.m. in the
Angell/Haven and Church St.
computing centers
Career Planning and
Placement - defining a career
objective 4:10-5 p.m. in CP&P
Room 1; summer job fair
workshop 4:10-5 p.m. in CP&P
Conference Room
"Music for the Wedding
The University Senate, comprised
of all 3,000 university professors
and research scientists, will have it's
annual meeting today at the Rack-
ham Building to discuss the faculty's
advisory role in university affairs.
Gayle Ness, chair of the Senate
Advisory Committee on University
Affairs (SACUA) said although the
annual meeting is generally not well
attended, it is "the one time when
the entire faculty, all three thousand
members can come together."
Sen. Lana Pollack, keynote
speaker of the meeting, will address
the role of the University as a state
institution.
Ness said the faculty will be
drawn to Pollack's speech because
"relations with the state over the last
ten yeanrshave deteriorated substan-
and colleges, inter-collegiate aca-
demic affairs do fall under the juris-
diction of the University Senate.
The faculty governance system
has two other branches, the Senate
Assembly and SACUA.
The 72-member Senate Assem-
bly, meets monthly to examine fac-
ulty concerns on such issues as the
harassment policy, extension of
tenure review and faculty parking fa-
cilities.
Assembly representation, much
like the U.S. House of Representa-
tives, is allotted according to the
number of faculty members in the
school or college.
The Senate Assembly has estab-
lished 13 standing committees to ad-
vise executive officers on University
policy.
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