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Israeli Publishers Pass on Hebrew ‘Mein Kampf’

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<i> From Associated Press </i>

A Holocaust survivor’s Hebrew translation of “Mein Kampf” has touched off a controversy over whether the book, which inspired the slaughter of 6 million Jews, should be published in Israel.

Author Dan Yaron argued Sunday that a Hebrew edition of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto will educate young Israelis about the evils of the Nazi regime. Other Holocaust survivors say it should never appear on Israeli bookshelves.

So far, Yaron has not found a publisher.

“It’s not easy to get someone to publish a book that is connected to Hitler,” said Yaron, who spent the last 18 months translating the first volume of “Mein Kampf.”

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“But 50 years after Hitler, we must be strong enough to look at who he was,” said the author, who fled his native Vienna in 1938 after watching Nazi troops parade down the main street of the Austrian capital.

Yaron, a retired educator, said young Jews should read “Mein Kampf” as a warning against racist ideology. He said, for example, that there were disturbing anti-Arab sentiments expressed by extreme right Israeli politicians.

“The new generation needs . . . to know about the dangers that can occur,” he said. “There are (Israelis) who promote racism.”

Yaron said the fact his parents were killed by the Nazis while trying to escape from Austria has strengthened his determination to see the book published in Israel.

“If people like my father . . . would have had the internal strength to read the book, they would have known, and things would have ended differently,” he said.

Other Holocaust refugees vehemently disagree with Yaron, saying publication would stir deep emotion in a nation that was founded in part to shelter the survivors of the Nazi horrors.

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‘Battles in Street’

If it is published, “there will be battles in the street,” predicted Noah Klieger, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who covers Holocaust affairs for the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

“We need freedom of opinion, but there is a limit, and Hitler is the limit,” he said in an interview. “The man who wrote this book destroyed--physically destroyed--a third of the Jewish people.”

Stefan Grayek, president of the World Federation of Jewish Fighters, Partisans and Camp Inmates, also opposes publication.

“Jews don’t need to read about the worst anti-Semitism the world has ever seen,” he said. “We don’t need to revive Hitler, certainly not in Israel, definitely not in Hebrew.”

No Interest

He said some Holocaust survivors were considering legal action to stop publication. But he said the federation decided against doing anything, believing that there was no real interest in the book.

If published, he said, “I think . . . the book will end up in a warehouse and not people’s bookshelves,” Grayek said.

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The Yad Vashem national Holocaust memorial has refused a request to publish the translation, a spokesman for Yad Vashem said.

“I question why anyone would publish the book,” said spokesman Menahem Fogel. “It’s going to upset a lot of people, and I can’t see it selling a lot of copies.

“The book is available in its original language, and, if researchers want to gain access to the book, it is best that they study it in the original language,” he said.

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