Polish authorities suspended the planned construction of a controversial memorial at the former Sobibor Nazi death camp, according to activists fighting the plan.

The suspension of the monument plan followed talks last month between the Polish Ministry of Culture and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, over concerns that the proposed construction would destroy archaeological findings and disturb human remains.

“In the end, it was decided to suspend and rethink the planned construction,” confirmed Yoram Haimi, an Israeli archaeologist whose team in September discovered the foundations of the gas chambers at Sobibor, which were thought to have been destroyed by the Nazis.

In 2011, Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage announced its plans to erect a visitors’ center and the monument, a mile-long wall along the path, discovered by Haimi, by which the Nazis led Jews to the gas chambers.

But citing concerns over construction on a mass grave with countless archaeological finds, Yad Vashem voiced its concerns over the plan last year, as did the Netherlands-based Sobibor Foundation. — jta