30/10/2019, 11:21:50
Jews drinking at the teats of a sow? A relief at the city church of Lutherstadt Wittenberg belongs in the opinion of the anti-Semitism commissioner in the museum.
The anti-Jewish relief at the town church in Wittenberg in Saxony-Anhalt should, according to the anti-Semitism commissioner of the Federal Government, Felix Klein, be removed. The relief is known as Judensau . "In my estimation the Judensau belongs to the museum", Klein said the editorial network Germany.
There you should provide the relief with an explanatory text. And at the place where the Judensau is now, a billboard should be attached. The board should convey that the evangelical church makes a visible contribution to overcoming anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism by removing the relief, Klein said.
The medieval relief shows a rabbi looking at a pig's tail and Jews drinking at the sow's teats. Pigs are considered unclean in the Jewish faith.
A man had complained to the church because he felt offended by the medieval sham sculpture. The plaintiff demanded to remove the sandstone relief from the church facade. The Dessau district court had ruled that the image was part of the listed church where Martin Luther once preached. In addition, arrange a board with explanations the relief. The plaintiff appealed against the judgment. The case now lies with the Higher Regional Court Naumburg.
The controversy surrounding the sandstone relief has been around for several decades. In 1988, 50 years after the beginning of the pogroms in Germany, a memorial stone was laid on the ground. There is also an informational stele, which arranges the relief.
The parish had a few years ago, why the relief should remain at the church: "Because even difficult history needs to be remembered, especially since Martin Luther with his anti-Jewish furor - along with most of his contemporaries - belongs to the shocking impact," it says in one Write on the website of the parish. It was signed by the theologian Friedrich Schorlemmer, who was once pastor in Wittenberg.
Source: zeit