It’s just rowdy youth was a typical commentary found in some Austrian media in light of the news that an art project honoring Holocaust survivors was defaced and destroyed over the last couple of days in Vienna. German-Italian photographer Luigi Toscano had erected 80 larger-than-life portraits of Holocaust survivors, an exhibit called Lest We Forget, opened recently by Austrian’s President Van Bellen.

Many of these faces were slashed by knives, some had antisemitic slurs and swastikas written all over them.

The portraits are large, 8 ft tall, and printed onto gauzy, water-repellent material. The exhibit has been shown in San Francisco and other places without incidents, while one version that is currently up in Germany has police protection. So does every single Jewish institution from daycare centers to schools to synagogues in Germany, according to Chancellor Merkel who was interviewed about the matter after the government agent responsible for anti-Semitism had announced last Saturday that Jews should not always be wearing kippot in public because it has become unsafe. As a response to this warning the German government suggested that all German citizens should go out in public with skull caps to show solidarity. A lot of good it will do….

Certainly the Austrian police will not follow this call for solidarity. They did not even show up when the vandalism was reported originally and the artist called to have the perpetrators pursued. “It’s just property damage.” Yes, let’s pretend there is no political context during a week where the Austrian Neo-Nazi Vice Chancellor Strache had to resign amidst scandal (a secret taping of his pre-election discussions with a presumed Russian agent to exchange favors for help.) A resignation that extended to cabinet members, a vote of no confidence for Chancellor Kurz, and new elections slated for September. The whole sordid story here.

Before we descend into complete gloom, however, there is also good news. Muslim citizens came to protect the images, artist collectives guarded them overnight, and a group of young people brought sewing kits and repaired the slashed surfaces. And at the beginning of this month Timothy Snyder (a Yale historian who specializes in the study of the Holocaust) delivered a remarkable speech at the Viennese Judenplatz on the occasion of Europe Day 2019. If you have time and inclination, it’s truly worth a read.

Photographs are from the old Jewish section of the Zentral Friedhof in Vienna. It has fallen into terrible disrepair, with waving fields of stinging nettles, roaming deer, and only an occasional sign that someone still comes to visit.

Music is by the quintessential Viennese composer Schubert. This, his very last sonata, was called by someone a message from the dead to the living if there ever was one.

Lest we forget.