An art installation that claims to contain the ashes of Nazi victims appeared outside Germany's parliament on Monday.

The memorial is part of a new campaign launched by art-activist collective Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (Center for Political Beauty) called "Come look for us!"

The group says it spent two years digging up soil and testing rivers near areas where the "Nazis perfected and industrialized mass murder."

"At one of the horrific sites we found ashes and bone char a meter deep. This column contains the sample from this soil that has been preserved for all eternity."

Dubbed the "Resistance Column," the solemn gray cylinder is partly illuminated from the inside with an orange light — giving viewers a chance to look at the soil sample contained inside.

Defending against criticism about desecrating human remains, the group said in a statement: "There were no graves where we sampled the soil."

Read more: German Holocaust victims' group loses charity status

A message to Merkel's conservatives

Although the activist artists say the memorial is designed to remember Holocaust victims, it's also intended to send a message to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives about the dangers of working with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

"The only likely path to power for the AfD is through the conservatives," the Center for Political Beauty said.

The column contains a drill sample that allegedly contains the ashes and bone fragments of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust

Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) have ruled out working with the far-right on a national and state-wide level.

At the local level, however, the success of the AfD has led some CDU politicians to team up with the far-right. Recently, a group of CDU politicians in the eastern state of Thuringia called for talks with "all democratically elected parties."

The Center for Political Beauty said it picked the location for its Holocaust memorial carefully. Located between the Bundestag and the chancellery, the artwork stands where the Kroll Opera House once stood — the site where German members of parliament gave dictator Adolf Hitler virtually unlimited authority in 1933.

Jewish community calls memorial 'problematic'

The Central Council of Jews in Germany said although it welcomes political protests to combat the rise of the far right, the memorial in Berlin raises several concerns.

"From a Jewish perspective, the Center for Political Beauty's latest campaign is problematic because it violates Jewish religious law about not disturbing the dead," council president Josef Schuster told DW in a statement.

He noted that if the human remains in the soil sample are actually Jewish victims of the Holocaust, then Jewish religious leaders need to be consulted on the best way to deal with those remains.

"It would be a welcome gesture if a rabbi were consulted when dismantling the 'Resistance Column' in order to ensure at least a respectful and correct handling of the ashes according to halacha," Schuster added.

Police have only granted permission for the memorial to remain in place until Saturday. The activists have put out a call for collections so they can pour concrete to make the memorial permanent.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Holocaust Memorial A huge field of stelae in the center of the German capital was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenmann. The almost 3,000 stone blocks commemorate the six million Jewish people from all over Europe who were murdered by the National Socialists.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The "Stumbling Stones" Designed by German artist Gunther Demnig, these brass plates are very small — only 10 by 10 centimeters (3.9 x 3.9 inches). The stumbling stones mark the homes and offices from which people were deported by the Nazis. More than 7,000 of them have been placed across Berlin, 70,000 across Europe, and in 2017 the first stones were also laid in outside Europe, in Buenos Aires.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Wannsee Conference House Fifteen high-ranking Nazi officials met in this villa on the Wannsee Lake on January 20, 1942 to discuss the systematic murder of European Jews, which they termed the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". Today the house is a memorial that informs visitors about the unimaginable dimension of the genocide that was decided here.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Track 17 Memorial White roses on track 17 at Grunewald station remember the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were sent to their deaths from here. 186 steel plates show the date, destination and number of deportees. The first train went to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz, Poland) on October 18, 1941; the last train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind Today, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin Mitte are mentioned in every travel guide. They are a backyard labyrinth in which many Jewish people lived and worked — for example in the brush factory of the German entrepreneur Otto Weidt. During the Nazi era he employed many blind and deaf Jews and saved them from deportation and death. The workshop of the blind is now a museum.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Fashion Center Hausvogteiplatz The heart of Berlin's fashion metropolis once beat here. A memorial sign made of high mirrors recalls the Jewish fashion designers and stylists who made clothes for the whole of Europe at Hausvogteiplatz. The National Socialists expropriated the Jewish owners and handed over the fashion stores to Aryan employees. Berlin's fashion center was irretrievably destroyed during the Second World War.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Memorial at Koppenplatz Before the Holocaust, 173,000 Jews lived in Berlin; in 1945 there were only 9,000. The monument "Der verlassene Raum" (The Deserted Room) is located in the middle of the Koppenplatz residential area in Berlin's Mitte district. It is a reminder of the Jewish citizens who were taken from their homes without warning and never returned.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The Jewish Museum Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a dramatic design: viewed from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited museums in Berlin, offering an overview of the turbulent centuries of German Jewish history.

Jewish memorials in Berlin Weissensee Jewish Cemetery There are still eight remaining Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, the largest of them in the Weissensee district. With over 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Many persecuted Jews hid in the complex premises during the Nazi era. On May 11, 1945, only three days after the end of the Second World War, the first postwar Jewish funeral service was held here.

Jewish memorials in Berlin The New Synagogue When the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse was first consecrated in 1866 it was considered the largest and most magnificent synagogue in Germany. The only one of Berlin's 13 synagogues to survive the Kristallnacht pogroms, it later burned down due to Allied bombs. It was reconstructed and opened again in 1995. Since then, the 50-meter-high golden dome once again dominates Berlin's cityscape. Author: Kerstin Schmidt



Searching for remains

The Center for Political Beauty said it collected over 240 samples from 23 locations across Germany as well as in previously Nazi-occupied areas in Poland and Ukraine.

Lab results found traces of human remains in over 70% of the samples, the group said in a statement.

The samples were taken from areas near Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka and other sites of Nazi German concentration camps where the ashes and remains of victims were spread in nearby fields and rivers.

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, over 1.1 million victims — including some 1 million Jewish prisoners — were killed. The ashes of hundreds of thousands of bodies were disposed of in the lakes and grounds surrounding the camp.

The artists' collective is known for its headline-grabbing protest pieces — particularly for setting up a replica of Berlin's Holocaust memorial outside the house of AfD politician Björn Höcke in 2017.

Earlier that year Höcke dubbed the memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame" and has called for a reversal of Germany's culture of remembrance surrounding the Holocaust.

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