'We want to finally be able to lead normal lives,' says Agnieszka Lobodzinska of the cultural center in Oswiecim. Her long legs and brunette hair helped her to win the 'Miss Oswiecim District' pageant. Indeed, she's the most beautiful woman in a city in which the Germans left behind the ugliest of all scars. The Oswiecimers are prowd of beautiful Agnieszka. Young men even pull out their mobile phones with cameras when she enters into cafes. Like so many others, the 17-year-old also wants to get out of the camp's shadows -- she says she wants to go to Warsaw or Krakow. Next year she'll finish high school and she's thinking about studying international relations or marketing.

In the meantime, she's trying to earn a few zlotys with the odd modelling job. But her runway ambitions haven't been working out quite as well as she'd like. She's already participated in national beauty competitions, and in even came in as the runner-up in the 'Miss Little Poland' competition. But there's a glass ceiling in the beauty business for young women from Oswiecim. There's the problem of that pesky name -- neither politicians nor sponsors want to associate themselves with it.

'Whenever I go anywhere, the people always give me strange looks.' 'Miss Auschwitz,' they say, shaking their heads. 'There are many Poles who have no idea anybody lives here -- they think everything here is dead.'

60 Years after Auschwitz: Oswiecim, City of the Dead - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE