Israel Matzav: Disgusting: Auschwitz model made from gold from Jews' teeth

Disgusting: Auschwitz model made from gold from Jews' teeth

I was going to ignore this story because I was so disgusted by it, and I am not going to give you the picture of it (which you can find - where else - in Haaretz) for the same reason. But I thought David Hazony's response merited brief mention and a link.

I am speaking, of course, about a monstrosity that has appeared in Copenhagen. A model of the entrance to Auschwitz, complete with a little train car, made out of gold — gold taken from the teeth of Holocaust victims. See for yourself. Maybe someone will say it is a hoax and relieve us of the notion.

I do not know what the artist thinks about Nazism, about Judaism, about anti-Semitism, about violence, or about art. I do not care. According to Haaretz’s captions, he put a Rolex watch in the tower, to hint at Switzerland’s complicity. I just don’t care. To me this is worse than political art, worse than feces-laden art, worse than almost anything called art. If art is meant to be a human thing, what can we say to an artist who does not seem to realize that we still count among the living the victims who passed through those gates? That every gram of gold that he touched may yet belong to someone? That it was extracted not with novocaine in a benevolent dentist’s office, but there, and then, and in that way?

Read it all.

Israel Matzav: Disgusting: Auschwitz model made from gold from Jews' teeth