Berlin police stop removal of urn that angered Jewish groups

BERLIN — Activists say Berlin police prevented them from dismantling an art installation that angered Jewish groups after those who erected it claimed it contained Holocaust victims’ remains.

A group calling itself Performance Art Committee says about 20 of its members attempted to cut down a pillar holding an urn that was placed in front of the German parliament by the left-wing Center for Political Beauty last month.

The Performance Art Committee, which goes by the German acronym AKK, says its members include both Jewish and non-Jewish activists.

Berlin police spokesman Martin Halweg confirms to The Associated Press that a member of the Center for Political Beauty had submitted a criminal complaint for property damage to police.

Officers at the scene recorded the identities of four people and then ordered them to leave the site, which they did, he says. The pillar remains stable, Halweg adds.

The International Auschwitz Committee condemned the installation last month. Auschwitz survivors were “aghast at this installation, which hurts their feelings and the eternal peace of the dead of their murdered relatives,” the committee said.

The Center for Political Beauty, which is known for its provocative stunts, said the urn contained soil from 23 locations near Nazi death and concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Ukraine where the remains, including ashes, of Holocaust victims were dumped. The group said it didn’t open any graves.

— AP