World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder on Thursday welcomed the decision of the Austrian parliament to seize the home where Adolf Hitler was born, after years of dispute over the property.
“We commend Austria for making this right decision. Hitler’s house should be torn down and erased from sight once and for all. It must not be a pilgrimage site, or a shrine for neo-Nazis.”
The parliament vote on Wednesday night was the culmination of decades of attempt by the German border town of Braunau, and then the national government, to purchase the building at 15 Salzburger Vorstadt from its owner, Geralinde Pommer. Pommer’s family has owned the house for more than a century. 
The Austrian government initiated legal procedures in October, fearing that the building was being treated by neo-Nazis as a shrine, and announced at the time that the building would be torn down. The building is listed as a historical landmark, but Hitler’s name does not appear on it.
Local residents are torn over what to do with the site: some have suggested it be used as a refugee center, and some want it to be turned into a museum dedicated to Austria’s liberation from the Nazis.
The building has stood empty since 2011, when the owner refused to authorize needed renovations. Over the last decades, the Austrian interior ministry has rented the building and sublet it to charitable organizations.
