In this Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017 photo, a visitor walks past the wax figure of Adolf Hitler displayed against the backdrop of an image of Nazi Death Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau next to Star Wars character Darth Vader, right, at De Mata Museum in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Slamet Riyadi)

TIMES OF ISRAEL –  The teenagers smile as they take selfies with a heroically posed Hitler, apparently unaware that the giant backdrop to their happy moment is the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp where more than a million people were exterminated by the Nazi dictator’s regime.

It’s a scene that plays out every day at a waxwork and visual effects museum in Yogyakarta, an Indonesian city better known for its universities, Javanese culture and as the seat of a historic sultanate. The infotainment-style museum, De Mata, is defending the display as “fun” for teenagers.

An Indonesian woman takes a selfie with a life-size wax sculpture of Adolf Hitler at a museum in Yogyakarta, November 10, 2017.

Human Rights Watch denounced the exhibit as “sickening” and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which campaigns against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, demanded its immediate removal.

“Everything about it is wrong. It’s hard to find words for how contemptible it is,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center. “The background is disgusting. It mocks the victims who went in and never came out.”

The waxwork portrays Hitler as an imposing and dominant figure, a far cry from the drug-addled physical wreck who committed suicide on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces overwhelmed the German capital, Berlin.

Behind the waxwork is a giant image of Auschwitz and the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” — work sets you free — that appeared over the entrance to Auschwitz and other camps where millions of Jews and others were systematically killed during Germany’s wartime occupation of much of Europe.

To one side of Hitler there’s Darth Vader and directly opposite is Indonesia’s current president, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

It’s not the first time Nazism and its symbols have been normalized or even idealized in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and home to a tiny Jewish community.

A Nazi-themed cafe in the city of Bandung where waiters wore SS uniforms caused anger abroad for several years until reportedly closing its doors at the beginning of this year. In 2014, a music video made by Indonesian pop stars as a tribute to presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto stirred outrage with its Nazi overtones.

The latest episode has surfaced during an upsurge in nationalistic rhetoric in Indonesia.

Warli, the marketing officer for the museum who goes by one name, said he was aware Hitler was responsible for mass murder but defended the waxwork, on display since 2014, as “one of the favorite figures for our visitors to take selfies with.”

“No visitors complained about it. Most of our visitors are having fun because they know this is just an entertainment museum,” he said.

Warli hadn’t heard of the Simon Wiesenthal Center but said he’d discuss its demand to remove the display with De Mata’s owner, businessman Peter Kusuma, and management.

“We will follow the best advice and the response from the public,” he said. “Let people judge whether the character is good or bad.”

Cooper said it was inexcusable that a business would intentionally use Nazism and the Holocaust to make money and deplored the “disconnect” with history.
“When Hitler was finished with Europe he was going to come after the folks in Asia,” he said.

Human Rights Watch’s Indonesia researcher, Andreas Harsono, said the waxwork and its concentration camp backdrop was “sickening” and a reflection that anti-Jewish sentiment in Indonesia is more widespread than generally appreciated.

He said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has fed anti-Semitism in Indonesia for decades but the prejudice has deeper roots in narrow interpretations of the Koran.

3 thoughts on “INDONESIA – Selfie museum stirs outrage with Nazi display”
  1. “Nazi” is a pejorative invented by the Allies. The Germans never called themselves that.
    In Vietnam, the pejorative “Gook” was used.
    Today, the pejoratives “Dune-Coon” and “Sand-Nigger” are used in the wars for Israel.
    See how it works?

  2. I protest that they put this exhibit beside the patently fictitious Darth Vader!
    Something tells me this display will come down and be replaced by a waxed memorial to the Holocaust’s tragic St. Anne, Patron of Girls-Who-Believe, Frank.

  3. Had people known then, what they know today, the camps would still be working now,ridding the world of this Zioashkanazifilth…….. they killed Jesus, who was God made flesh……………….. these footstools of satan have no idea what a reckoning lies in store for them……………….

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Discover more from The Ugly Truth

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading