Israel Museum asked to remove exhibit on Hitler’s Nazi mistress

JERUSALEM -- Education Minister Zevulun Hammer has called on the directors of the Israel Museum to reconsider continuing the exhibition "Live and Die as Eva Braun" by Roee Rosen.

In the exhibit, visitors are invited to become Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun, in Nazi Germany in the year 1945, just prior to her and Hitler's death in a Nazi bunker. It includes doctored German children's illustrations, some pornographic.

Hammer wrote to the museum's directors that his office had been approached by a large group of families of Holocaust survivors and others claiming the exhibit presented Hitler and the Nazis "in a positive light."

Hammer said the families had asked him to express their protest over the exhibit and the fact that they had been very disturbed by it.

Noting he generally did not interfere with museums regarding the content of exhibitions, Hammer wrote: "Because we are dealing with the memory of the Holocaust and our historic and moral duty to respect both its victims and survivors and their families, I would ask that you reconsider the continuation of the exhibit, or consider removing elements which offend the feelings of many people."

The museum responded that in considering whether to show the exhibit, it had been particularly sensitive to the subject of the Holocaust and to the survivors.

"The exhibit in no way shows Hitler or Eva Braun in a positive light, but rather negatively, and the guilt shown in the exhibit is that of German culture and its exemplars," a museum statement said.