BONN - A senior member of the US Congress attacked Germany's flagship history museum yesterday, accusing it of portraying Jews as "sub-human" and saying it was absurd that its permanent exhibition depicted little before 1945.
Mr Tom Lantos, a Jewish California Democrat who went to the United States after surviving the Holocaust in Nazi occupied Hungary, said the Museum of Contemporary History in Bonn did not devote nearly enough space to German Jews and their fate. He also criticised the museum for not highlighting the contribution Jews made to every aspect of German life. "It portrays Jews as sub human in a Holocaust context rather than showing Jews for having been major contributors to German culture, history, civilisation, literature, music, art - you name it," said Mr Lantos, who toured the museum on Tuesday.
The German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, a history graduate, proposed the museum's construction in his maiden speech as chancellor in 1982. The glass fronted building stands just across the road from his chancellery.
A spokeswoman for the museum said she was shocked at the criticism, adding that the museum took great care to point up the links between Germany's past and present and that it had won international recognition for its work.