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- NATION, Page 57American NotesNEW MEXICOLapse of Taste
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- When Roadrunners, the official magazine of the New Mexico
- State Police Association, commissioned a painting in honor of
- highway patrolmen, artist Leonard Frietze found a model that was
- "fairly moving . . . and bold." Said he: "It was supposed to
- epitomize an individual who wanted to gallantly protect the
- citizens." His choice: a 1938 portrait of Adolf Hitler.
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- Frietze's painting appeared on the back cover of the
- magazine's fall 1990 issue and sparked a loud outcry. Susan
- Seligman, state coordinator for the Anti-Defamation League,
- denounced it as "an unfortunate and insensitive choice. Can you
- imagine a Holocaust survivor seeing the New Mexico state police
- portrayed as Hitler?" Both the magazine's editor and Frietze
- insist that they meant no Nazi overtones. The painting, Frietze
- explained, was designed only "to make the police feel good about
- themselves."
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