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Austria’s plans for Hitler’s birth house stir controversy
BERLIN (JTA) — Plans to turn Hitler’s birth house into a police station have turned a small Austrian town upside down.
The local administration of Branau announced Monday its concrete plans to put the building to practical use, promising to house a police training program on issues related to human rights.
But less than two months before the redesign is to begin, local citizens and leaders are not in agreement on the plan.
A filmmaker has suggested that Hitler himself wanted to have local officials move into the rooms where he was born in 1889 and spent the first months of his life. In a documentary he is releasing on Tuesday, Günter Schwaiger reveals a 1939 news report about Hitler’s order. The film “Who’s afraid of Braunau?” is to premiere on a screen in front of the three-story house, which is located on a corner near Braunau’s town square. The town has about 16,000 residents.
Schwaiger told the AFP that the police station will “always be suspected” of being “in line with the dictator’s wishes.”
The building, which was constructed in the early to mid-19th century, has become a site of pilgrimage for Hitler supporters, despite the fact that the Austrian government expropriated the house in 2017, reportedly in part to prevent the site from becoming a magnet for neo-Nazis.
“To stop those gatherings, the town placed a monument in front of the house, consisting of a block of granite from the Mauthausen concentration camp quarry, inscribed with a message in memory of the victims of fascism,” California attorney Cary Lowe, who was born in Braunau to Holocaust survivors, told JTA in an email.
“If the government implements the police station proposal, which includes relocating the anti-fascist monument, I fear that will just suppress the history of the place and trivialize the tragic events that flowed from there,” he said.
In May, it was announced that the long-planned police station would include the human rights training program, in an apparent nod to opponents.
Such a program would “do justice to moral, political and legal responsibility,” Oliver Rathkolb of the Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna said in a statement issued at the time by Austria’s Interior Ministry. “We have to face our past and give this historically burdened place a life-affirming perspective.”
But the plan has not received wide popular support. A small majority of those surveyed by the polling firm Market Institut said they preferred to see an entity move in that would focus solely on National Socialism, remembrance, anti-fascism or peace. Very few agreed with the planned use by law enforcement.
“There is only one acceptable solution, and that is to realize a ‘House of responsibility’ project,” said retired historian Andreas Maislinger, who comes from the area. He has proposed that the site be used solely for the purpose of remembrance and tackling contemporary conflicts. “It would be a reframing of the whole town. Up to now, Braunau has only one thing it is known for – Hitler.”
As the discussion heated up recently, an Austrian artist collective called Total Refusal suggested that a controversial statue of Vienna’s wartime mayor Karl Lueger be picked up by helicopter and dropped over Hitler’s birth house.
Hannah Lessing, secretary general of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, was on the jury that decided on the new use. She would rather have seen the place turned into a hub to help refugees.
“But I agreed to the police project, since they can also learn from history,” she told JTA. “Why not?”
“Hitler lived there exactly two months. So why is it so special? We already deal with Hitler on many levels, in organizations and museums.”
Austria’s interior ministry has estimated the redesign will cost about 20 million euros. It should be completed by 2025; the police station and district police headquarters should move in in 2026.
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The post Austria’s plans for Hitler’s birth house stir controversy appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.