The faces of Holocaust victims were slashed out of large canvasses in Vienna last night by 'right-wing radicalism', according to the installation's photographer.
Luigi Toscano has taken 200 photographs of survivors of the Holocaust since 2015, but yesterday around 80 were destroyed.
The installation was set up on part of the Ringstrasse, a busy road that runs around downtown Vienna, on May 7.
But since then three attacks have seen the now elderly victims' faces removed, slashed with knives or daubed with swastikas.
And Mr Toscano has been left 'devastated' by the destruction.
He said: 'There's been vandalism which hasn't been politically motivated, but nothing of this proportion.
'This is right-wing radicalism.'
On a post to Instagram he wrote: 'The 94 year old protagonist Susan Cernyak-Spatz shared a quote with us that gets to the heart of it: "If we forget the past, we are condemned to repeat it."'
President Alexander Van der Bellen says he is 'deeply worried' about the attacks.
He said: 'I know that the overwhelming majority of Austrian society totally rejects the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
'That some cannot see the truth and solemn reminder shown by these photos is crushing.'
On social media he said: 'It deeply affects me that the exhibition 'Lest We Forget' was brutally destroyed.'
The leader of Austria's Jewish community, Oskar Deutsch, said that 'it is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria' and that police are investigating.
He tweeted: 'In Vienna, photos of Shoah survivors were violated. It is an anti-Semitic attack on all of Austria.
'The police are investigating. Suggested response: watch the installation and give a voice on Sunday for human dignity and for Europe.'
Volunteers spent today repairing the photographs and Muslim Youth of Austria volunteers are keeping watch.
Austria's Forum Against Anti-Semitism tallied 503 anti-Semitic acts in the country in 2017, twice the figure from 2014.
Last year the installation, called Lest We Forget, was set up in Boston, US, where the large portraits honoured the human faces who suffered under Nazism.
'The face is the mirror of your life. It's a most respectful act when you show something in the face,' Mr Toscano has previously said. 'This is my art. We must respect these people.'
Since 2015, Toscano has photographed more than 200 survivors in Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Israel and the United States.
In Austria alone some 65,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust while around 135,000 managed to escape.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
