Berlin hotel denies anti-Israel claim by ‘Shoah’ director
Claude Lanzmann says employee told him Jewish state omitted from list of international dialing codes at behest of Arab guests
BERLIN — A five-star hotel in Berlin is dismissing claims of anti-Israel bias by French Jewish filmmaker Claude Lanzmann.
The director of the Holocaust documentary “Shoah” was quoted in a German newspaper Thursday as claiming that the Hotel Bristol intentionally left Israel off a list of international dialing codes.
Lanzmann told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that a hotel employee informed him the omission was requested by Arab guests.
Hotel director Birgitt Ullerich denied there were any such instructions.
She told The Associated Press that only 34 countries were on the list and Israel’s absence “was simply an oversight.”
The hotel is part of the Kempinski group, which has its roots in a restaurant founded by German Jewish businessman Berthold Kempinski.
Berlin interior minister Frank Henkel urged the hotel to investigate Lanzmann’s allegation.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
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