The President of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG) Oskar Deutsch, calls the controversial memorial to former Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger in Vienna a “monument to an antisemite”. It should be “gone, disposed of”, he demanded.
The future of the Lueger memorial has been debated in Vienna for years because of the honoured man’s antisemitism.
Instead, a Shoah centre should be built there – Deutsch had been campaigning for such a centre, modelled on institutions in the USA or Israel in Vienna, since the previous year.
The reason: There are fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses.
At the time, Deutsch suggested the City of Vienna and the federal government as sponsors. Lueger Square would be “excellently suited” as a location. He also called for a study that would include all monuments and squares named after antisemites and Nazis in Austria.
