A Holocaust Art Exhibit Was Vandalized, Again And Again. But Vienna Is Fighting Back.

On the night of Sunday, May 26, a public art installation in Vienna featuring portraits of Holocaust survivors was slashed with a knife by an unknown assailant. It wasn’t the first time. The installation by the German-Italian artist Luigi Toscana, called “Lest We Forget,” includes 70 blown-up photographs of survivors printed on eight-by-five foot weather-proof textiles. 10 photographs were slashed, according to Deutsche Welle, a German news service, but the Sunday attack was only the latest. Vandals have targeted “Lest We Forget” since it was installed on Vienna’s Ringstrasse street in early May. A week before the slashing, the display was tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti, including swastikas and the words “1 Jesus = 6,000,000 Jews,” the Jewish Chronicle reported. Deutsche Welle noted seven previous attacks on the work. An interfaith effort to support Toscano’s work has formed in response to the repeated vandalism.