Posted: 5/25/2009 2:50:00 PM
Author: Associated Press
Source: This article oreiginally appeared in the Jerusalem Post online on May 23, 2009.
Polish court punishes 'Mein Kampf' publisher
by ASSOCIATED PRESS
WARSAW, Poland
A Polish court has convicted a man who published Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf of copyright infringement and given him a three-month suspended prison sentence.
The man, identified only as Marek S. in line with Polish privacy laws, was sued by the German state of Bavaria, which holds the rights to the book.
The defendant published 20,000 copies of Mein Kampf in 2005 without seeking Bavaria's permission. His motive was profit, he said.
He will have to serve the prison term if he tries to publish more copies in the next two years.
Mein Kampf is banned in Germany and Bavaria is seeking to block it in other countries for fear it fears it could be misused by right-wing extremists.
The 1925 book expresses Hitler's desire to exterminate Jews and occupy territory in Eastern Europe.
Note from Librarians for Fairness:
MEMRI: More Details On Arabic "MEIN KAMPF"
Middle East Media and Research Institute (www.memri.org) has just released more details on the sale of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomy. The Arabic translation is being distributed by Al-Shurouq, a Ramallah-based book distributor, and is now in 6th place on the Palestinian best-seller list. The cover of the book shows a picture of Hitler, a swastika, and the title in both German and Arabic. Following are some excerpts of the introduction by translator Luis Al-Haj:
"Hitler was a man of ideology who bequeathed an ideological heritage whose decay is inconceivable. This ideological heritage includes politics, society, science, culture, and war as science and culture...
"The National Socialism that Hitler preached for and whose characteristics were presented in his book My Struggle [Mein Kampf]... this National Socialism did not die with the death of its herald. Rather, its seeds multiplied under each star...
"This translation of the book My Struggle has never been presented to Arab speakers. It is taken from the original text of the author, Adolf Hitler. The text was untouched by the censor. We made a point to deliver Hitler's opinions and theories on nationalism, regimes, and ethnicity without any changes because they are not yet outmoded and because we, in the Arab world, still proceed haphazardly in all three fields..."
