Crime against martyrdom heritage — preliminary remarks

Abstract

Crime against martyrdom heritage is to date a conventional term. There are still no legal defin-itions of martyrdom heritage and the place of national remembrance under applicable national law, which significantly weakens the possibility of exercising effective legal protection. Only the last several years have seen several thefts and acts of vandalism in the extermination camps and POW camps. Not only the personal belongings of the victims but also elements of the camp infrastructure became objects of theft. Counterfeits and attempts to illegally export such items have also been reported. The criminal law protection of martyrdom heritage seems insufficient to the threats already diagnosed. The applicable criminal provisions are diffuse and cumbersome to use, which makes it difficult to combat still-existing crime. It is also difficult to talk about the martyrdom heritage protection system as such. Historians and archaeologists are paying more and more attention to the problems of research on the martyrdom heritage. The results of the conducted research should prove helpful in developing appropriate, updated legal regulations. It is also important to diagnose how state institutions deal with exercising protection over the martyrdom heritage, whether a coherent strategy has been developed in this area or whether this protection is carried out on an ad hoc basis. There is no doubt that a wider and, what is more important, a current diagnosis of this issue seems to be necessary for the context of more and more frequent crimes and offences.