In the museum of contemporary art in Tehran, all paintings exhibited in the public galleries are by Iranian artists. But in the basement, squirreled away behind a high-security door, it hides a startling array of world famous paintings by the likes of Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Miró, Pollock and Warhol. The paintings were purchased when the shah’s monarchical regime was flush with oil wealth and reputable works of art were selling relatively cheaply.

Despite being widely judged as the most important and comprehensive western art collection in Asia, there are no plans to display them publicly. The works have fallen prey to the cultural isolationist beliefs of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s radical president. The “buried” art is part of a general clampdown on social, intellectual and cultural freedoms, according to a report by the Guardian (October 29, 2007)

Germany has inaugurated a new museum at the site of the Nazi concentration camp where diarist Anne Frank died. The new exhibition centre at Bergen-Belsen, in the north of Germany, highlights the fates of those who died at the camp during World War II. Among the exhibits are the drawings and diaries of Jews imprisoned there, plus video statements by survivors.

Liberated by Allied troops in 1945 and later razed, Bergen-Belsen began life as a prisoner of war camp. From 1943 until the end of the war it was a concentration camp for Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, with an estimated 125,000 people held there.

Read article (BBC, October 28, 2007)
Go to website Bergen Belsen Memorial