Swedish Artist Uses Jewish Holocaust Victims' Ashes for Painting

THE TELEGRAPH
By Matthew Day, Warsaw

Image of artist and ashes from Nazi death camp. Courtesy of Radio Sweden

POLAND---Carl Michael von Hausswolff mixed the ashes from the infamous Nazi facility with water to compose a small painting of grey streaks. The work now hangs in a gallery in the Swedish city of Lund. But Salomon Schulman, a leading voice in Sweden's Jewish community who lost many relatives to the Holocaust, has condemned the painting as "revolting". Mr Von Hausswolff took the ashes during a 1989 visit to Majdanek, which, during its 34 months in operation from 1941 to 1944, claimed around 79,000 lives, the vast majority of them Polish Jews. The artist said the ashes appeared to "contain the memories and the souls of people: people tormented and murdered by other people in the most viscous war of the 20th Century". Despite the scandal surrounding the painting, Martin Bryder, the owner of the Lund gallery, defended the decision to exhibit the work of art. [link]