Maurizio Cattelan’s Statue of Praying Hitler in Ex-Warsaw Ghetto Sparks Emotion

People look through at a statue by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan showing Adolf Hitler. praying on his knees, unseen, in Warsaw, Poland, on Friday Dec. 28, 2012. The work, «HIM» has been drawing visitors since it was installed last month and even some anger. One Jewish group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, condemned the work’s placement in the former ghetto as “a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis’ Jewish victims”.

Others are praising it, saying it has a strong emotional force that has them reflecting on the nature of human evil. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP via La Presse)