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Memorial Foundation: Guest books full of hate messages
“We had to exchange guest books or could no longer display them because they were full of hate messages,” says the director of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, Axel Drecoll (archive photo). photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa-Zentralbild/POOL/dpa
The Sachsenhausen Memorial also feels the effects of hatred, anti-Semitism and hostility to Israel. Since the beginning of the Gaza war there has been significantly more graffiti there.
The director of the Brandenburg Foundation Memorials, Axel Drecoll, has complained about an increase in anti-Semitic graffiti and hate messages at the Sachsenhausen Memorial in Oranienburg, north of Berlin. “We had to exchange guest books or could no longer display them because they were full of hate messages,” he told the German Press Agency.
Since the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on Israel on October 7th, a growing number of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks have been observed on the site of the former concentration camp. “This has increased significantly, among other things and in a perfidious way, especially at the places of detention, in the so-called barracks 38 and 39, where Jewish prisoners were located.”
Director: Memorial cannot monitor thousands of visitors
According to Drecoll, it is difficult for the Sachsenhausen Memorial to prevent such acts and to locate the perpetrators. “The memorial is freely accessible and up to 2,000 people come here every day. We can’t monitor it, even if we wanted to. And it has to remain an open, transparent and free place.”
The memorial works very well with the security forces and the local police, and also reports anti-constitutional symbols, said Drecoll. However, the graffiti and hate messages do not occur so frequently in the groups run, making it difficult to identify those responsible. “That’s why it’s not that easy for us to prevent this from happening in the future.”
A significantly larger alliance is needed to curb anti-Semitism. The educational work of the memorials is not enough for this. “The schools are needed, the parents’ homes are needed. We can’t afford that,” said the foundation director. He also views the results for the AfD in election surveys with great concern. “All statements that defame minorities and are hostile to people, parties and groups that represent this counteract our work.”
According to the memorial, more than 200,000 people were imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg between 1936 and 1945, including Jews and Sinti and Roma. Tens of thousands of prisoners died from hunger, disease, forced labor, medical experiments and mistreatment or became victims of systematic extermination actions by the SS.