A German who has been fighting for years to have an anti-Semitic 13th century statue removed from a church wall is planning to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), after losing several times in German courts.
Recently, the German Federal Constitutional Court rejected a request by Michael Düllmann to review the case. Düllmann converted to Judaism in 1978 and wants the anti-Jewish image removed.
The sandstone relief in the wall of a historically important church in the eastern city of Wittenberg is known as the Judensau (“Jewish Pig”) and shows two people depicted as Jews suckling the teats of a sow, while a figure, presumably a rabbi, lifts the animal’s tail and looks into its anus.
The relief is particularly offensive because pigs are considered unclean in the Jewish faith.
The church is sometimes called the Mother Church of the Reformation, because Martin Luther (1483-1546) preached there.
In 2022, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled against Düllmann on appeal and ruled that the relief could remain in the church.
The court ruled that a plaque around the relief and another outside the church, with additional information about the image, are sufficient to transform the “monument of shame” into a “memorial.”
Düllmann, 80, tried to appeal the ruling again on constitutional grounds, arguing that the Judensau statue should be removed “given the serious violation of the personal rights it entailed, not only of the complainant, but of all Jews in Germany.”
A spokesman for the Constitutional Court told dpa on Saturday that judges at the court rejected Düllmann’s request without giving reasons.
In an appeal to the ECtHR in Strasbourg, France, Düllmann would be able to rely on the prohibition of discrimination in the European Convention on Human Rights and on the protection of personality rights, his lawyer explained in a letter obtained by dpa.
According to a spokesman, Düllmann has agreed with his lawyer that a lawsuit will be filed. According to the lawyer, there is time until shortly before Christmas to file a case with the ECHR.
