Toothy debate about memorial
2005-05-13 08:25
Berlin -Germany's new Holocaust memorial was dogged by controversy on Thursday as it opened to the public, with Jewish leaders bitterly opposing plans to insert a victim's tooth into a stone at the site.
Berlin's Jewish community is threatening to boycott the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe over the proposal by Lea Rosh, a German TV journalist who played a leading role in the 17-year campaign to have the memorial built.
"I am appalled and find Lea Rosh's actions disrespectful," Paul Spiegel, the president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, told Tagesspiegel newspaper on Thursday.
According to Jewish tradition, the bodies of Jews and any of their body parts can only be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
Rosh held up the tooth during her speech at the opening ceremony on Tuesday, saying she had found it at the Nazi death camp in Belzec, Poland, 17 years ago and it had inspired her to push for a permanent memorial to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis.
She defended her idea of inserting the tooth into one of the 2 711 concrete blocks which make up the memorial.
"My wish is in line with Jewish law," Roth said, adding she had sought advice from a rabbi who told her it would be permissible.
The project has stirred high emotions from the start. Jewish groups have questioned why it does not pay tribute to the Nazis' non-Jewish victims and its critics say it is too impersonal.
The memorial is situated next to the site once occupied by Adolf Hitler's chancellery and the bunker where he committed suicide.