Polish village mayor is determined Hitler birthday oak will not last 1,000 years
It has been 67 years since a young tree wrapped in a swastika was planted in honour of Adolf Hitler’s birthday, and it has grown into a sturdy oak that casts its shadow over a tiny Polish village. Now the mayor wants the tree axed — because it knows too much.
Maria Kurowska, the Mayor of Jaslo, now wants the tree to be chopped down. It is bad for the village’s image, she says, and is standing in the way of a potential traffic roundabout. “It’s only a tree,” she says,” and we have hundreds of them here.
The debate is splitting the village of 38,000 people down the middle. Some suggest, in e-mails to the mayor, that it should simply be rededicated to Holocaust victims. “The tree is not a Nazi, leave it alone,” says one of the conservationists. “It is growing healthy and tall, let it grow,” says Mr Polak.
The debate has even reached Israel, where commentators on the Haaretz website have suggested that Hitler has at least made a small contribution to controlling climate change. Another commentator said that it should undergo a similar fate to Hitler’s human victims: “This tree should be cut, put on a train and incinerated.”
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Maria Kurowska, the Mayor of Jaslo, now wants the tree to be chopped down. It is bad for the village’s image, she says, and is standing in the way of a potential traffic roundabout. “It’s only a tree,” she says,” and we have hundreds of them here.
The debate is splitting the village of 38,000 people down the middle. Some suggest, in e-mails to the mayor, that it should simply be rededicated to Holocaust victims. “The tree is not a Nazi, leave it alone,” says one of the conservationists. “It is growing healthy and tall, let it grow,” says Mr Polak.
The debate has even reached Israel, where commentators on the Haaretz website have suggested that Hitler has at least made a small contribution to controlling climate change. Another commentator said that it should undergo a similar fate to Hitler’s human victims: “This tree should be cut, put on a train and incinerated.”