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Police officers guard the Ahlem memorial in Lower Saxony after unknown persons had attached numerous National Socialist, anti-Semitic and inciting stickers there
Photo: Rainer Droese / localpic / IMAGO
Concentration camp memorials in Germany are registering more and more right-wing extremist attacks. Oliver von Wrochem, director of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg and spokesman for the Association of Concentration Camp Memorials in Germany, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Saturday: "The number of incidents is increasing noticeably: vandalism through swastika graffiti, damage to memorial plaques or denial of Nazi crimes represent a problem on a serious scale." The perpetrators are often to be located in the right-wing spectrum. "People with right-wing convictions are no longer afraid to visit concentration camp memorials and openly express right-wing extremist ideas here," said von Wrochem.
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Many institutions have reacted to the development by tightening the house rules. "Persons who wear banned symbols, who openly express anti-Semitic or historical revisionist views will be expelled from the premises." Such incidents would be reported. The historian also said, "But often they act very subtly. For example, by asking questions about history that suggest that the Holocaust did not happen, or that relativize Nazi crimes."
With regard to the anti-Israel demonstrations and anti-Semitic attitudes in parts of the migrant community in Germany, von Wrochem said: "So far, I have not observed any increased incidents in memorials that commemorate Nazi injustice that can be directly traced back to this." However, it cannot be ruled out that this will change.
mar/dpa