Byline: GEORGE E. THOMAS
Two current preservation stories are instructive about the encroachment of the needs of the present upon historic sites and the means by which we preserve and frame the artifacts that represent history's complex issues.
Near the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, and at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, questions are being raised about the proper approach to preserving memorial sites that tear at society.
In Poland, a developer proposed to build a supermarket almost within sight of the fences that enclose one of World War II's most notorious death camps. At Arlington, Va., a defense-funding bill would make it possible to enlarge the Arlington National Cemetery at the expense of a grove of trees that is part of the original setting of the Robert E. Lee mansion, the property's historic core.
Each story raises the central preservation issue: What does the present owe to the past and the future? And by what means do we determine an …
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