Artists apologize for Holocaust memorial with 'victim ashes'
December 4, 2019
A German art-activist collective has apologized after a public outcry over a "tasteless" memorial it erected in Berlin that claims to contain the ashes of Nazi victims. "We made mistakes," the group said.
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German art-activist collective the Center for Political Beauty (ZPS) apologized on Wednesday for an art installation that allegedly held the ashes of Nazi victims. The memorial was erected by the group in front of the German parliament on Monday, as a warning to Chancellor Angela Merkel about the dangers of cooperating with far-right parties.
"We would like to apologize to all those affected, relatives and survivors, whose feelings we have hurt," the ZPS announced in a statement on its website, admitting it had "made mistakes."
"We would like to apologize, especially to Jewish institutions, societies or individuals who believe that our work disturbed the peace required for the dead under Jewish law," the statement added.
An event planned for Saturday has been canceled, but the ZPS has not confirmed the fate of the memorial or the ashes, saying in the statement that the group would welcome suggestions for what an appropriate resting place for the human remains would be.
As questions continue to be asked about the future of Merkel's coalition government, there are concerns that her center-right CDU party may break their promises and work with far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the future, the far-right AfD is currently the third-biggest party in the German parliament.
Jewish memorials in Berlin
The Holocaust may have been eight decades ago, but it is never to be forgotten. Large and small memorials all over the German capital commemorate the victims of the Nazis.
Image: DW/M. Gwozdz
The Holocaust Memorial
A huge field of stelae in the center of the German capital was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenmann. The almost 3,000 stone blocks commemorate the six million Jewish people from all over Europe who were murdered by the Nazis.
Image: picture-alliance/Schoening
The "Stumbling Stones"
Designed by German artist Gunther Demnig, these brass plates are very small — only 10 by 10 centimeters (3.9 x 3.9 inches). They mark the homes and offices from which people were deported by the Nazis. Around 10,000 of them have been placed across Berlin.
Image: DW/T.Walker
House of the Wannsee Conference
Several high-ranking Nazi officials met in this villa on the Wannsee Lake in January 1942 to discuss the systematic murder of European Jews, which they termed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Today the house is a memorial that informs visitors about the unimaginable dimension of the genocide that was decided here.
Image: Paul Zinken/dpa/picture alliance
Track 17 Memorial
White roses on track 17 at Grunewald station remember the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were sent to their deaths from here. 186 steel plates show the date, destination and number of deportees. The first train went to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz, Poland) on October 18, 1941; the last train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945.
Image: imago/IPON
Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind
Today, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin Mitte are mentioned in every travel guide. They are a backyard labyrinth in which many Jewish people lived and worked — for example in the brush factory of the German entrepreneur Otto Weidt. During the Nazi era he employed many blind and deaf Jews and saved them from deportation and death. The workshop of the blind is now a museum.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images
Fashion Center Hausvogteiplatz
The heart of Berlin's fashion metropolis once beat here. A memorial sign made of high mirrors recalls the Jewish fashion designers and stylists who made clothes for the whole of Europe at Hausvogteiplatz. The National Socialists expropriated the Jewish owners. Berlin's fashion center was irretrievably destroyed during the Second World War.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Kalaene
Memorial at Koppenplatz
Before the Holocaust, 173,000 Jews lived in Berlin; in 1945 there were only 9,000. The monument "Der verlassene Raum" (The Deserted Room) is located in the middle of the Koppenplatz residential area in Berlin's Mitte district. It is a reminder of the Jewish citizens who were taken from their homes without warning and never returned.
Image: Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance
The Jewish Museum
Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a dramatic design: viewed from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited museums in Berlin, offering an overview of the turbulent centuries of German Jewish history.
Image: Miguel Villagran/AP Photo/picture alliance
Weissensee Jewish Cemetery
There are still eight remaining Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, the largest of them in the Weissensee district. With over 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Many persecuted Jews hid in the complex premises during the Nazi era. On May 11, 1945, only three days after the end of the Second World War, the first postwar Jewish funeral service was held here.
When the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse was first consecrated in 1866 it was considered the largest and most magnificent synagogue in Germany. One of Berlin's 13 synagogues to survive the Kristallnacht pogroms, it later burned down due to Allied bombs. It was reconstructed and opened again in 1995. Since then, the 50-meter-high golden dome once again dominates Berlin's cityscape.
Image: Stephan Schulz/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/picture alliance
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'Tasteless, tactless and irreverent'
The so-called "Resistance Column," which contained soil samples from the sites where "Nazis perfected and industrialized mass murder," had received a barrage of criticism, not least from Jewish communities.
"From a Jewish perspective, the Center for Political Beauty's latest campaign is problematic because it violates Jewish religious law about not disturbing the dead," President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Josef Schuster told DW in a statement. He said it would have been wise for the group to consult with a rabbi before taking the soil samples.
The president of the Munich Israel Cultural Society, Charlotte Knobloch, said the action "was meant to be provocative but is in fact only tasteless, tactless and irreverent."
The ZPS also claimed in their statement to have heard from many relatives of those murdered by the Nazis and members of the Jewish community who welcomed the artwork and the message they were trying to impart.
How was the memorial created?
The Center for Political Beauty previously said it collected over 240 samples from 23 locations across Germany as well as in previously Nazi-occupied areas in Poland and Ukraine.
Lab results found traces of human remains in over 70% of the samples, the group said in a statement.
The samples were taken from areas near Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka and other sites of Nazi German concentration camps where the ashes and remains of victims were spread in nearby fields and rivers.
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, over 1.1 million victims — including some 1 million Jewish prisoners — were killed. The ashes of hundreds of thousands of bodies were disposed of in the lakes and grounds surrounding the camp.
Earlier that year Höcke dubbed the memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame" and has called for a reversal of Germany's culture of remembrance surrounding the Holocaust.