A well-known luxury hotel in Berlin has denied claims that it deliberately omitted Israel in its phone directory due to concerns of its Arab guests.
French Jewish filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, who directed the Holocaust documentary "Shoah", wrote an op-ed in the French newspaper 'Le Figaro' and the German daily 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung' in which claimed that the Kempinski Hotel Bristol had intentionally left Israel off a list of international dialing codes.
In his article, Lanzmann claimed that a hotel employee had told 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, near the Kurfürstendamm, is part of the Kempinski group that has its roots in a restaurant founded by German Jewish businessman Berthold Kempinski. Berlin Interior Senator Frank Henkel urged the hotel to investigate Lanzmann's allegation, according to AP.
