German antizionist group Kufiyas in Buchenwald is planning to protest this year’s commemoration of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp due to its ban of pro-Palestinian symbols.
The Germany-based group, which describes itself as an “anti-fascist, international initiative”, accuses the Buchenwald Memorial of becoming “a place of historical revisionism and genocide denial” for its “repression against solidarity with Palestinians”, according to the Kufiyas in Buchenwald site.
The initiative points to a 2025 court ruling that granted the memorial the right to refuse entry to people wearing the Palestinian keffiyah scarf.
“Instead of honouring the persecuted and resolutely opposing all genocides, the memorial site has consistently spread Israeli propaganda and provided ideological support for the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” the Kufiyas in Buchenwald said in a statement on its website.
The cumulative effect of the repression, the group says, is the “internationalist and anti-fascist history of camp resistance is increasingly denied and non-Jewish victim groups are ignored, while Jews are politically instrumentalised and exceptionalised: as legitimation for the continued genocide in Palestine, combined with the false assumption of a Zionist allegiance on the part of Jews in general.”
Given the current ban, the group’s protest on the anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation will not take place on the grounds themselves.
A spokesperson for the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation told the Swiss site NZZ: "We are concerned that attempts are being made to inappropriately exploit the commemoration."
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