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August 22, 2003/Av 24 5763, Vol. 55, No. 52
Dachau residents seek to escape past
TOBY AXELROD
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
BERLIN - Nearly 60 years after the end of the Holocaust, some residents of the city of Dachau want to close the town's notorious Nazi concentration camp memorial.
There doesn't seem to be much danger of that. But the brouhaha over the concentration camp at Dachau, which today houses a memorial to the camp's victims, erupted when a right-wing politician told a group of visiting Israeli journalists that he thought the memorial should be closed because city residents are tired of having to bear the burden of Dachau's guilt.
The uproar sparked by Robert Konopka's comments is indicative of the high sensitivity among Germans - and among Jews around the world - to the memory of the Holocaust.
It also raises the question of whether extremists should be given a platform in respectable media - especially since there is virtually no danger of the memorial closing, according to the memorial's director, Barbara Distel.
The comments by Konopka, a Bavarian Parliamentarian, caused a public outcry when they were reported on Israeli television and in Yediot Achronot, an Israeli daily.
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, dashed off a letter to the Ger- man government. Israelis launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at halting the memorial's closure, oblivious to the fact that no closure plans were being considered. The memorial actually inaugurated an updated exhibition in 2002.
"We regret that the reports by the Israeli journalists about their visit to Dachau raised a baseless impression among the Israeli and American public," Distel said in an open letter dated Aug. 13, after receiving concerned mail, mostly from Israel and the United States.
"My colleagues at the Dachau memorial and the survivors," she said, "would prefer a more critical evaluation of the challenges associated with this work."
Despite the current opposition to closing the camp, Konopka said he expects it would be easier to push for the camp's closure after the last survivors die, Israeli television reporter Liran Dan told JTA.
In his meeting with the reporters, Konopka, who represents the far-right Republikaner party, suggested there was broad public support for closing the camp.
"He said, 'Listen, 50 years have passed and the people from my town have suffered enough because of our name,'" said a freelance journalist who was at the meeting with Konopka.
Resentment against Jews still occasionally surfaces in Dachau. A local politician has said that Lufthansa, the German airline, should name an airplane after Dachau to help the town's reputation.
Others in Germany have complained about having to pay reparations to Holocaust survivors even though they personally are not guilty of persecuting Jews.
In an ironic twist, homes located near the former Nazi concentration camp now are considered prime residential real estate because they are adjacent to the camp's quiet, green grounds, Holocaust survivor Max Mannheimer told the visiting journalists.
Konopka suggested building apartment houses on the site of the concentration camp, Dan said.
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