Hitler theme restaurant in Mumbai criticised

23 August 2006

NEW DELHI – A restaurant in the western Indian city of Mumbai which has been themed and named after Adolf Hitler has sparked outrage from the Jewish community in India and abroad, local media reported Wednesday.

The restaurant, Hitler’s Cross, located in the Navi Mumbai area in the city formerly known as Bombay, has angered the city’s 5,000-strong Jewish population ever since it opened last week, displaying a poster of Hitler at its entrance.

While Israel’s consul general in Mumbai, Daniel Zonshine, said he would write to the local authorities to get the restaurant’s name changed, the city’s Jewish community planned to take the owner, Puneet Sablok, to court if he did not change the name.

Zonshine told the Times of India daily that he had been receiving calls from concerned and irate Jews across the world. The diplomat said there was mounting anger over the issue in Israel and even in Germany after people came to know about the restaurant through the internet.

“This kind of publicity for a restaurant is not in good taste and for good reason. I am personally quite angry about this,” he told the paper.

Zonshine said he would also be sending letters to the German and US consulates in India.

But owner Sablok said he did not mean to offend the Jewish community and had removed the Hitler poster. He was adamant on retaining the name, however.

“I will not change the name. We are not promoting Hitler. My decor or products don’t promote Hitler. It’s just for the sake of the name,” Sablok told the NDTV network.

But inquiries revealed that Sablok was using Hitler’s posters and Nazi swastikas to promote the restaurant before its launch.

“We were all wondering what is this Hitler’s Cross. There were several advertisements stating that Hitler is coming,” a local resident told the TV network.

DPA

Subject: German news