German activists apologise for using Shoah victims’ ashes in installation

A German activist group has apologised for using what it says is the ashes of victims of the Nazis for a Holocaust memorial and protest against the far right.

The art-activist collective Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, or Centre for Political Beauty, earlier this week placed a large container of soil samples from areas where Nazis were active in the mass murder of Jews and others that it says contains traces of human remains.

“We would like to apologise to all those affected, relatives and survivors, whose feelings we have hurt,” the Centre for Political Beauty said in a statement on its website. The group has “made mistakes,” it also said.

“We would like to apologise, especially to Jewish institutions, societies or individuals who believe that our work disturbed the peace required for the dead under Jewish law,” the statement added.

The group said it spent two years digging up soil from 23 sites across Germany, and in Poland and Ukraine, including at the Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka Nazi camps, where Nazis were active in the mass murder of Jews and others. Lab results found traces of human remains in over 70 percent of the 240 samples, the group said in a statement.

The group has not said what it plans to do with the soil samples but said in the statement that it was open to suggestions for a resting place for them.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, told the German news service Deutsche Welle that a rabbi should be consulted on how to dispose of the remains.