Paris, 19 April 2010

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre applauded Gerd Buurman - a Gentile theatre director for demanding that the “Cologne Wailing Wall” antisemitic exhibit be closed.

Despite critics on the City Council, including members of the Green and the Left Parties, who called the exhibit “repugnant and clearly antisemitic,” the Cologne Public Prosecutor dismissed the complaint, claiming that it did “not meet the criteria of inciting hate.”

Though the exhibit displ ays a cartoon stereotyping to the medieval blood libel - a man emblazoned with a Star of David  devouring a Palestinian child, with a knife marked ‘Gaza’ and a fork wrapped in a US flag. Next to the plate is a glass of the child’s blood. “Cologne Wailing Wall” is on show in the bustling pedestrian zone facing the Cathedral. 

The Wiesenthal Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, praised Buurman “for his intention to lead a civil legal action suit against the exhibit’s designer, Walter Herrmann, reportedly notorious for his hatred of Israel.” 

The current Mayor of Cologne, Jurgen Roters, has endorsed the Prosecutor by his silence and done nothing to condemn Hermann’s hatemongering. 

"Cologne’s citizens should protest the resuscitation in their city of a cartoon adapted from the Nazi 'Der Stürmer' newspaper of the 1930s. Our Centre will closely monitor the situation," concluded Samuels.