Seraphim
03-20-2004, 05:00 AM
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BERLIN (*******) - A waxworks museum in Berlin that featured a life-size figure of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler has proved to be so controversial it is to be shut down.
In a reminder of how sensitive an issue Germany's Nazi past remains almost 60 years after the end of World War Two, the German bank which owns the building housing the "Galerie Art'el" and its effigy of Hitler has asked the museum to leave.
"I had to get rid of Hitler," said museum director Inna Vollstaedt on Friday. "My landlords have cancelled my lease and told me to close from today. I'm very disappointed."
Vollstaedt said the bank was worried about being associated with the Nazis and wanted her out as soon as possible.
"They were tired of being continually hassled on the phone. Apparently people have been out on the streets protesting about the figure in Israel," said the Russian-born Vollstaedt.
The Wuerttembergische Hypothekenbank, who Vollstaedt said owns the real estate firm that the building belongs to, was not immediately available for comment.
The wax Hitler shared a room with his wartime adversaries the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill overlooking Checkpoint Charlie, the former Cold War border crossing between East and West Berlin.
Germany's biggest-selling newspaper Bild described the waxworks, which include figures such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (news - web sites) and Diana, Princess of Wales, a "macabre show".
"This figure should be banned before Checkpoint Charlie becomes a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis," Bild quoted Lea Rosh, the woman who launched a campaign for a memorial in Berlin to victims of the Holocaust, as saying.
Vollstaedt, who said she had lost half her relatives in the 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad during the war, dismissed suggestions she had been trying to glorify Hitler and blamed the press for the furore.
"The visitors who came to see him said the press were wrong to get so worked up about it," she said. "They said they were glad to be able to show their children this appalling man who started the war and did so many terrible things."
BERLIN (*******) - A waxworks museum in Berlin that featured a life-size figure of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler has proved to be so controversial it is to be shut down.
In a reminder of how sensitive an issue Germany's Nazi past remains almost 60 years after the end of World War Two, the German bank which owns the building housing the "Galerie Art'el" and its effigy of Hitler has asked the museum to leave.
"I had to get rid of Hitler," said museum director Inna Vollstaedt on Friday. "My landlords have cancelled my lease and told me to close from today. I'm very disappointed."
Vollstaedt said the bank was worried about being associated with the Nazis and wanted her out as soon as possible.
"They were tired of being continually hassled on the phone. Apparently people have been out on the streets protesting about the figure in Israel," said the Russian-born Vollstaedt.
The Wuerttembergische Hypothekenbank, who Vollstaedt said owns the real estate firm that the building belongs to, was not immediately available for comment.
The wax Hitler shared a room with his wartime adversaries the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill overlooking Checkpoint Charlie, the former Cold War border crossing between East and West Berlin.
Germany's biggest-selling newspaper Bild described the waxworks, which include figures such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (news - web sites) and Diana, Princess of Wales, a "macabre show".
"This figure should be banned before Checkpoint Charlie becomes a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis," Bild quoted Lea Rosh, the woman who launched a campaign for a memorial in Berlin to victims of the Holocaust, as saying.
Vollstaedt, who said she had lost half her relatives in the 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad during the war, dismissed suggestions she had been trying to glorify Hitler and blamed the press for the furore.
"The visitors who came to see him said the press were wrong to get so worked up about it," she said. "They said they were glad to be able to show their children this appalling man who started the war and did so many terrible things."