German court rules Holocaust memorial can bar people wearing keffiyeh scarves
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A pro-Palestinian demonstrator in the UK wearing a keffiyeh scarf.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- A German court upheld Buchenwald memorial's right to deny entry to someone wearing a keffiyeh.
- The court cited the woman's intent to send a political message against the memorial's support for Israel.
- The memorial director clarified keffiyehs aren't forbidden, but context matters to prevent relativising Nazi crimes.
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BERLIN – A German court said on Aug 20 that a Nazi concentration camp memorial has the right to refuse entry to those wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.
The higher administrative court in the eastern state of Thuringia rejected a request from a woman to be allowed entry to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial while wearing a keffiyeh.
According to local media reports, the woman was turned away when she attempted to attend a commemorative event marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation in April while wearing the scarf.
She then petitioned the courts to allow her to return to the memorial for another commemorative event this week while wearing a keffiyeh.
The court found that the memorial was within its rights to deny her entry, pointing to the woman’s declared aim of “sending a political message against what she saw as the (memorial’s) one-sided support for the policies of the Israeli government”.
“It is unquestionable that this would endanger the sense of security of many Jews, especially at this site,” the court said.
The court said the woman’s right to freedom of expression was outweighed in this case by the memorial’s “interest in upholding the purpose of the institution”.
Germany, still trying to atone for the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust, has been one of Israel’s staunchest allies.
However, in recent months it has sharpened its criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz announcing in August that no more licences would be granted for arms exports to Israel that could be used in Gaza.
The Buchenwald memorial faced criticism in July when an internal document was leaked which described the keffiyeh as “closely associated with efforts to destroy the state of Israel”.
The director of the memorial, Mr Jens-Christian Wagner, said subsequently that the document contained “mistakes” and would have to be reworked.
On the question of the keffiyeh, he told broadcaster NDR in July that it was not per se “a forbidden symbol” at the memorial.
“However, when it is used together with other symbols... to relativise Nazi crimes, then we would ask people to remove those symbols,” he said.
Around 340,000 prisoners, including Jews, Roma, homosexuals and Soviet prisoners of war, passed through Buchenwald and its annexe Mittelbau-Dora, both located near the German city of Weimar.
About 56,000 people lost their lives at Buchenwald – some executed, others starved or worked to death – and a further 20,000 died in Mittelbau-Dora, where inmates worked on the Nazis’ V1 and V2 rockets. AFP
