Poland investigates use of holocaust ash in painting

In this undated photo, publicly provided by the State Museum of Majdanek, in Lublin, Poland, crematorium furnaces are pictured. / AP Photo

WARSAW, Poland Polish prosecutors are investigating a Swedish artist's claim that he used the ashes of Holocaust victims to make a painting, an act that could carry a prison term.

The artist, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, wrote on the website of the Bryder Gallery in Lund, Sweden, last year that he made a painting using ashes that he took from crematorium furnaces in Majdanek, a former Nazi German death camp located in eastern Poland, on a visit there in 1989.

Spokeswoman Beata Syk-Jankowska said Tuesday that prosecutors in the eastern city of Lublin have opened an investigation to check whether there is truth to the artist's claim. She said there is no evidence and prosecutors are acting on media reports.

Swedish investigators will be asked for assistance in gathering evidence and questioning the artist, she said.

The small painting, named "Memory Works," is made of broad vertical brown and gray strokes of brush that leave an impression of a tight group of people. It could prove very difficult to determine whether von Hausswolff used victims' ashes in the painting or is staging a publicity stunt.

According to Google translate, Hausswolff wrote on the Bryder Gallery's website: "2010 I took out the jar with ashes and decided to 'do something' with it. I took out a number of watercolor paper and decided to only cover a rectangular area of these sheets with ashes mixed with water."

If he did use the ashes, it would likely be extremely offensive to Holocaust survivors and many others, including the Poles who were also targeted during World War II and are now preserving the memory of the victims. He also could be charged in Poland with desecrating human ashes and their resting place and face up to eight years in prison.

Between 1941 and 1944, some 150,000 people were held at the Majdanek camp. An estimated 80,000 of them died, most of whom were Jewish.

In 1989, there were still some human ashes remaining in furnaces from the war from the burning of the Nazi's victims. Removing any ash would be a crime, but there were no security cameras on the site at the time to register such an action, Agnieszka Kowalczyk, a spokeswoman for the museum at the site, told The Associated Press.

The Majdanek museum and the Jewish community in Sweden have condemned von Hausswolff's claim.

Martin Bryder, owner of the Bryder Gallery in Lund, confirmed to the AP on Tuesday that the painting was exhibited there for some three weeks in November and December. He declined to say anything about the artist, the painting or the scandal.

[ZentralPleins]

Hitler, like Mohammad, was a warrior, enslaver, preyed on children, and ethnically cleansed territory of non-conformist populations. The success of the two figures in the use of violence proves, for their followers, the virtue of their actions. Islam does not provide a basis for moral objection to the Holocaust. That is why, the comments section below stories about the Holocaust are flooded with gloating Muslims.

Barbarians. Bad religion. Ignore them.

[Sonneteer]

I wrote a poem about my visit to Majdanek back in 1971.


http://xpalidosis.blogspot.com/2010/01/majdanek-walking-through-majdanek-where.html

[Katie_L]

..."it would likely be extremely offensive to Holocaust survivors and many others..." -- ya think?!? My family was touched by this horrific event and even if this clown is only pulling a stunt, I was physically sick thinking about even the possibility of such a thing. He should be locked up for sheer stupidity if nothing else.

[teplanetzod]

Right on Katie!!!

[kbbpll]

cbsjews.com

[DOGGYPANTS]

Honestly, he should name the painting "The Scream." Then it should be burned and the ashes returned to their resting place, blessed by religious figures.
This thief should be prosecuted.

[TheDocD]

I think making art of it is actually honoring the victims and giving them more remembrance, not a bad thing at all. Which is better, to use and display their remains in beauty as God intended them to be, or to leave them sitting in a pile at the bottom of an oven never to be seen again?

[teplanetzod]

He stoled them from a sacred place, a placed that is visited by thousands to learn about the Holocaust.