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German foundation seeking Holocaust museum funding
DEIDRE BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
FRANKFURT - As the controversy regarding a proposed Holocaust memorial in Germany rages on, a private group has called for the establishment of a museum here that would focus on the perpetrators.
A "central museum is needed to depict not just the sufferings of the victims but the profiles of the perpetrators," said Rolf Wernstedt, a German Social Democratic Party politician who is president of the Foundation for a German Holocaust Museum. Wernstedt made his comments at a news conference in Bonn on Tuesday where the establishment of the foundation was formally announced.
The proposed museum, Wernstedt said, could challenge visitors to continue reflecting on the background of the Holocaust and its lessons for contemporary life. Unlike the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which focus on the sufferings of Holocaust victims, Wernstedt said the German museum could focus on the issues raised by German participation in the Holocaust.
"Who were these perpetrators? How can we evaluate their background? What was the history of anti-Semitism in different areas of daily German life?" Wernstedt proposed as some of the questions that could be researched at the museum.
Wernstedt said the group did not want to compete with efforts to build a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which has been mired in controversy about the location and design of the memorial for a decade.
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