To a burst of applause from his peasant audience in a Dachau meeting hall, Bavaria’s Deputy Minister-President and Minister of Agriculture. Josef Baugmartner, today exclaimed: “The crematorium must go!” It must go, the Deputy Prime Minister observed, because its continued existence constituted “a defamation of the Dachau area and its people.” A dignified memorial would suffice to commemorate the death of Hitler’s victims, he felt.
Dr. Baumgartner, who heads the Bavarian Party, is one of the most powerful figures in Bavarian polities. With his speech he lent considerable support to the demand publicly made a month ago by the governmental administrator of Dachau county, Landtag deputy Heinrich Junker, that the crematorium of the infamous Dachau camp should be closed. That demand was immediately and vigorously opposed, however, by the Bavarian Minister-President, the Minister of Finance and by State Secretary Dr. Joseph Panholzer, who spoke at a special Tisha b’Av service arranged next to the crematorium.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
