A painting depicting Anne Frank as wearing a keffiyeh has drawn sharp criticism from German and Israeli officials, with some saying the work crosses the line between legitimate art and antisemitic propaganda.

The painting, by Italian artist Costantino Ciervo, is on display at the privately run Fluxus Museum in Potsdam as part of an exhibition titled “Commune – The Paradox of Imagination in the Middle East Conflict.” It shows Frank, a universal symbol of the Holocaust, wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh, writing with a pencil on what seems to be the screen of a modern tablet.

The Israeli Embassy in Germany has condemned the piece, calling it “a prime example of a growing artistic trend” in which artistic freedom is used to normalize “historical distortion, antisemitism and, ultimately, terrorism.” The embassy called out Ciervo for portraying Jews as “modern Nazis” and demanded the immediate removal of the piece.

Volker Beck, chairman of the German-Israeli Friendship Association, voiced similar concerns. He filed a police complaint against the exhibition’s curators, charging that the work trivializes the persecution suffered during the Holocaust, turning a victim of Nazism into a symbol of the Palestinian cause.

“It suggests Israel is doing to Palestinians what the Nazis did to Anne Frank,” Beck said. “Even if the artist is protected by freedom of expression, curators have........

© The Times of Israel