Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PULHEIM-STOMMELN, Germany, Mar 13, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Germany's Jewish leaders are infuriated by a Mexican performance artist who has turned a former synagogue near Cologne into a gas chamber.
Germans by the hundreds turned out Sunday in Pulheim-Stommeln to be symbolically gassed by artist Santiago Sierra with car exhaust fumes, the magazine Der Spiegel reported Monday.
Sierra hooked hoses from the exhaust pipes of six cars into the former synagogue and invited Germans into the building in an effort to counter the "trivialization of our memory of the Holocaust," he said in a statement.
The "experience" was scheduled to take place every Sunday through April 30, but Pulheim city officials suspended it Monday after an outcry from Jewish leaders and media claiming it belittled the Holocaust and its victims.
"We are suspending the project for a couple of weeks," city spokesman Dirk Springob told Der Spiegel. He said Sierra planned to meet with Jewish leaders and "convince them in face-to-face talks and that the project can be continued."
The Central Council of Jews in Germany released a statement saying: "Anyone who thinks it's art to simulate a 'gas chamber' via highly toxic car exhaust fumes, and in a former synagogue at that, in an attempt to convey supposed authenticity, is hurting not just the dignity of the victims but also that of the Jewish community. This has absolutely nothing to do with a culture of remembrance."
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
