Italy: Investigators launch Hitler wine probe

Verona, 8 Aug. (AKI) - Italian prosecutors opened an investigation into sales of wine with an image of German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on the label after two American told the police they came across the bottles in a small supermarket in the northern town of Garda , according to the Corriere della Sera.

The Jewish couple spotted Hitler on the wine bottles - posing with a manipulated photo of the late Pope John Paul II in one version - on the shelves of the rustic Italian supermarket, they were appalled.

Matthew Hirsch, a lawyer in Philadelphia, saw the wine as he was looking for water, wine and fruit. Numerous family members of his wife Cindy, including her aunt and grandparents, died in Aushwitz and her father is a Holocaust survivor.

"I was shocked", said Mrs. Hirsh. "It is not just an affront to Jews, despite my husband and I being Jewish. It is an affront to humanity as a whole", she said.

According to the shop keeper the bottles were part of history, "like Che Guevara." He admitted in an interview that even if he doesn't sell many they must stay as a constant reminder of what had happened "to the sons and daughters of those who had carried out these actions."

"At the moment the only presumable crime applicable to such an episode is that of apologizing for fascism", said prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia, recognising the solution introduced in 1952 Italy, the birthplace of fascism.

"Perhaps one should also create that for human stupidity", he added, concerned that for some money even justifies being immoral by going against the culture and conscience of many others.

The mayor of Verona said the will be removed bottles from store shelves and everyone's sight.