A huge outdoor art poster that blends Mickey Mouse's image with that of a swastika and a nude woman's body is causing a stir in Poland, where memories of the suffering inflicted by Nazi Germany remain strong.

The poster, which went up in June in the western city of Poznan just steps from a synagogue, is an Italian artist's take on what he calls the "horrors" of the American lifestyle and is one piece of artwork in a contemporary art exhibition opening in the fall.

But the reaction shows that there is little appetite in Poland for satirical or artistic uses of images linked to Nazi Germany, which invaded Poland in 1939 and built ghettoes and death camps across the country in which millions were murdered....