Teaching Tolerance From Hitler’s House, Totally Jewish

Totally Jewish (London Jewish News Online) January 22, 2001 Teaching Tolerance From Hitler’s House by Zeddy Lawrence Plans have been announced to turn Adolph Hitler’s birthplace into an educational centre aimed at raising awareness about Austria’s role in the Holocaust. Hitler himself lived in the three-storey property at 15 Salzburger Vorstadt in Braunau for only two years before his family moved away from the area. The building is now a workshop where a group of mentally and physically disabled people make handicrafts. However the property is still known as “the Hitler House” and the town’s Mayor Gerhard Skiba describes it as a “burden”. He said: “The city of Braunau’s intention is not to demonise the place but to show all the events that happened during the Nazi era and to inform people of the co-operation by citizens of Austria in this murderous regime.” It’s understood that converting the run-down property into what’s described as a ‘House of Responsibility’ will cost around £2.5million. The announcement coincides with the country’s agreement to pay around £300million to Holocaust survivors as compensation for the seizure of property during the Nazi era. Chief negotiator Ernst Sucharipa said: “Like all nations we have to live up to our past… the deeds of all Austrians bad or good, the fact that Austrians were perpetrators, onlookers and victims.” The compensation agreement has been slammed by Joerg Haider, the former leader of Austria’s Freedom Party. The far-right politician told a gathering in Vienna: “There must be an end at one point.” He went on to attack Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel for trying to woo America’s East Coast Jewish community.