American photographer and activist Nan Goldin has used a speech at the opening of her exhibition in Germany to condemn Israel's war in Gaza.

Goldin, 71, said Friday she wanted to use her retrospective show at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin "as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage" at what she described as "genocide in Gaza and Lebanon".

"My grandparents escaped pogroms in Russia. I was brought up knowing about the Nazi Holocaust. What I see in Gaza reminds me of the pogroms that my grandparents escaped," Goldin said.

Goldin, who is of Jewish origin, was born in Washington DC and is a leading artist and activist whose life and work was documented in the award-winning 2022 film 'AlltheBeautyandtheBloodshed'.

She spoke of the displacement and destruction in Gaza, and told a cheering audience that criticism of Israel should not be conflated with anti-Semitism.

'Free, free Palestine'

Goldin also criticised Germany and stated that anti-Muslim hate was being ignored in the country. "Germany is home of the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe. Yet protests are met with police dogs and deportation and stigmatisation," she said.

Goldin walked off the stage to loud chants of "free, free Palestine", which drowned out a subsequent speech by the director of the gallery, Klaus Biesenbach.

Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, to which the Neue Nationalgalerie belongs, sharply condemned Goldin's talk and the protesters' disruption of Biesenbach's speech.

"This does not correspond to our understanding of freedom of expression," he said.

Biesenbach noted that he disagreed with Goldin but affirmed her right to freely express herself.