Who could have thought the renovation of the Kunsthaus, a Swiss fine arts museum, would reopen old wounds from such a painful past?
But it has.
Hundreds of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and elsewhere have been demonstrating at Swiss embassies in major capitals around the world to protest construction of a museum wing over a piece of land they say is a 14th-century sacred Jewish burial site, the New York Times reports.
Jewish community leaders in Zurich are deeply annoyed at the protests. The Orthodox leaders contend they are too intimidated to challenge the project themselves.
But three local rabbinic leaders published a public letter in Hebrew warning the cemetery search is a local matter and telling outsiders not to “meddle” with local issues.
The city engineering department did in fact make an effort to find the Jewish burial ground, and avoid it, drilling holes at every 10 feet in a circle around the entire area, at depths of up to 164 feet, to search for remains.
Urs Spinner, spokesperson for the city engineering department, said it was almost certain the Jewish cemetery no longer remains. He added the Zurich Orthodox rabbis are “working closely” with local authorities” and said the protests were due to false information.
However, as if rubbing salt into bleeding wounds, critics are also asking whether the museum should be exhibiting the spectacular art collection of Zurich businessman Emil Georg Bührle.
A former Nazi arms dealer, the collector purchased expensive French Impressionist art works that were looted from Jewish owners by Nazis.
“We were playing with open cards about the past when the vote took place in 2012,” said Björn Quellenberg, a spokesperson for the Kunsthaus. “That was the time to discuss it. No one saw any major obstacle with the fact of the Jewish cemetery” and Bührle’s past was “hotly debated.”
The Kunsthaus sells a slim book published by The Bührle Foundation noting that Bührle, who died in 1956, was forced by a Swiss court to return 13 looted artworks that he had bought during the war to their owners or descendants. He later bought back nine of them, including a Degas that had once been in the possession of Hermann Göring.
The entire collection is comprised of some 600 works; around 300 are privately owned by his three grandchildren rather than the foundation.
The project, expected to cost millions, is being financed by the city and canton of Zurich, and the museum association. The Bührle Foundation, created by descendants to oversee the collection will also contribute an undisclosed amount.
