高考英语专题阅读：portraitsWASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2006 — Four hundred and fifty cartoonists and comic book creators from around the world have signed a petition (请愿书) urging a Polish （波兰的）museum to return eight portraits to the elderly California artist who painted them in Auschwitz. （奥斯维辛集中营，2 战中德国关押犯人的地方） Mrs. Dina Babbitt, now 83, was deported （放逐） to Auschwitz in 1943, but her life was spared after Dr. Josef Mengele learned of a mural （壁画） of Snow White that she had painted. Mengele ordered her to paint portraits of some of the victims of his savage （残暴的） medical experiments. In the 1970s, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, a Polish government institution on the site of the former death camp, acquired eight of the paintings, but refuses to give them back to Mrs. Babbitt. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, said, “Four years ago, Congress declared that the paintings belong to Mrs. Babbitt, and instructed the State Department to intervene （介入）. Yet Poland refuses to change its opinion.” Although most of the artists are from the United States, there are also many signatories ( 签名者) from Italy, France, Spain, Canada and other countries. Their petition, （情愿） addressed to museum director Dr. Piotr Cywinski, declares in part: （声明的部分内容） “The fundamental principle that art belongs to the artist who created it is recognized everywhere except in totalitarian ( 极权主义的) countries. We hope that Poland, having been liberated （解放）from totalitarian rule, would not regard everything as the property of the state.（不应该认为所有东西都是国有财产）“We agree that the display of Mrs. Babbitt’s artwork is of great educational value, and we are pleased that the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum recognizes their importance. But that educational purpose could just as easily be achieved by displaying high-quality reproductions of the paintings, while returning the originals to their creator and rightful owner. Mrs. Babbitt has suffered enough. （巴比特夫人已经受了太多的苦难）We ask you to give her back her paintings.”
