First travelling Auschwitz exhibition hit by anti-Semitic hate campaign in Spain

A boot is part of the artefacts on show at the first Auschwitz exhibition away from the camp

Organisers of the first major off-site exhibition of objects and artefacts from Auschwitz have been targeted by virulent social media attacks leading up to the world premiere opening of the display in Madrid on December 1.

“People use the anonymity of social media to launch negationist and hate-filled messages. This shows us that there are still people who need to know this story,” Luis Ferreiro, the director of Spanish company Musealia, told the Daily Telegraph.

More than 100 messages have been reported to the Spanish authorities, including messages denying the Holocaust.

The exhibition features more than 600 objects from Auschwitz, including one of the freight wagons used to carry prisoners to the camp.

It has been organised by Musealia in conjunction with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and a score of Jewish and Holocaust institutions. It will run in Madrid until next June before travelling to seven other European cities and seven in North America over the next seven years, with the as-yet unconfirmed possibility of a stop in Britain.

“I have spent 30 years working in this area and Auschwitz attracts deniers,” said Robert Jan van Pelt, the chief curator of the exhibition.

“What we are doing with this exhibition is establishing the facts and putting solid evidence on display," he told Spanish newspaper El País.

Mr Ferreiro said he was moved to action after reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl in 2009. “If I had been a movie director, I would have made a film; if I had been an author, I would have written about it," he said.

"But I am part of a family exhibition company, and we have invested a lot in the conservation of these objects, their transportation and expensive production.”

Mr Ferreiro said that school groups will not be charged, with tickets to the general public costing up to €12 euros (£11).

Source http://telegraph.co.uk