Racists attack portraits of holocaust victims in Vienna for THIRD time
Racists have attacked portraits of holocaust victims in Vienna for the THIRD time – cutting out their faces and daubing them with swastikas
- Some 80 photographs of survivors of the Holocaust were destroyed on part of the Ringstrasse in Vienna
- The installation intended to honour those who suffered between 1933 and 1946 during the Nazi Holocaust
- Luigi Toscano has taken more than 200 photographs of survivors since 2015 and listened to their stories
- Faces were cut out and some daubed with swastikas three times since the installation was set up in early May
The faces of Holocaust victims were slashed out of large canvasses in Vienna last night by ‘right-wing radicalism’, according to the installation’s photographer.
Luigi Toscano has taken 200 photographs of survivors of the Holocaust since 2015, but yesterday around 80 were destroyed.
The installation was set up on part of the Ringstrasse, a busy road that runs around downtown Vienna, on May 7.
But since then three attacks have seen the now elderly victims’ faces removed, slashed with knives or daubed with swastikas.
Luigi Toscano has taken 200 photographs of survivors of the Holocaust since 2015, but yesterday around 80 were destroyed. As Austrians walked past they were faced with images of the slashed faces of those who the installation had intended to honour
And Mr Toscano has been left ‘devastated’ by the destruction.
He said: ‘There’s been vandalism which hasn’t been politically motivated, but nothing of this proportion.
‘This is right-wing radicalism.’
On a post to Instagram he wrote: ‘The 94 year old protagonist Susan Cernyak-Spatz shared a quote with us that gets to the heart of it: “If we forget the past, we are condemned to repeat it.”‘
President Alexander Van der Bellen says he is ‘deeply worried’ about the attacks.
He said: ‘I know that the overwhelming majority of Austrian society totally rejects the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
‘That some cannot see the truth and solemn reminder shown by these photos is crushing.’
This woman stopped to look at the damage after 80 out of 200 portraits had their faces cut out amid a rising amount of anti-Semitism across Europe. Just days ago German officials warned Jews it was not safe to wear their skullcaps in all parts of the country due to the increasing threat of violence
Photographer Luigi Toscano has taken more than 200 photographs of Holocaust survivors and listens to the story of each person. As he inspected the damage to his installation he said he was ‘devastated’ his art had been destroyed by a rise in ‘right-wing radicalism’
On social media he said: ‘It deeply affects me that the exhibition ‘Lest We Forget’ was brutally destroyed.’
The leader of Austria’s Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said that ‘it is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria’ and that police are investigating.
He tweeted: ‘In Vienna, photos of Shoah survivors were violated. It is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria.
‘The police are investigating. Suggested response: watch the installation and give a voice on Sunday for human dignity and for Europe.’
Austria’s Forum Against Anti-Semitism tallied 503 anti-Semitic acts in the country in 2017, twice the figure from 2014.
The leader of Austria’s Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said that ‘it is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria’ and that police are investigating. He tweeted: ‘In Vienna, photos of Shoah survivors were violated. It is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria
Austria’s Forum Against Anti-Semitism tallied 503 anti-Semitic acts in the country in 2017, twice the figure from 2014. But Mr Toscano said he will not let the vandals’ destruction put him off continuing to create his installations
A bunch of roses was placed underneath one of the portraits on display. ‘The face is the mirror of your life. It’s a most respectful act when you show something in the face,’ Mr Toscano has previously said. ‘This is my art. We must respect these people’
Last year the installation, called Lest We Forget, was set up in Boston, US, where the large portraits honoured the human faces who suffered under Nazism.
‘The face is the mirror of your life. It’s a most respectful act when you show something in the face,’ Mr Toscano has previously said. ‘This is my art. We must respect these people.’
Since 2015, Toscano has photographed more than 200 survivors in Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Israel and the United States.
In Austria alone some 65,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust while around 135,000 managed to escape.
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