Palestinian Symbols Banned at Holocaust Memorial Site Buchenwald, Germany
In a new legal case, the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) is defending an antifascist activist’s right to commemorate at Holocaust memorial site Buchenwald, after she was banned and threatened with a criminal complaint by the memorial’s administration for wearing a Kufiya. This case challenges the criminalisation of Palestinian symbols and the role of memorial and cultural institutions in the repression of Palestine solidarity.
ELSC Partner lawyer Roland Meister has filed a complaint at the Weimar Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht Weimar), against the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation on behalf of antifascist activist Anna M. The complaint challenges a ban imposed on Anna M. from entering the memorial site, which violates fundamental democratic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the German Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU).
Background:
The case originates from 6 April 2025 when Anna M. entered the Buchenwald memorial site to participate in the annual commemoration ceremony marking the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp. She was immediately approached by foundation staff and pressured to remove her Kufiya, which they claimed violated the foundation’s house rules. When Anna M. refused to remove the scarf, staff banned her from the premises and threatened to file a criminal complaint for unlawful entry under section 123 of the German criminal code The discrimination took place at a site dedicated to remembering victims of fascist terror, yet was enforced against an antifascist commemorating that very history.
In July 2025 Anna M. informed the foundation of her intention to visit Buchenwald on 18 August 2025 to commemorate the murders of the communist Buchenwald concentration camp inmate Rudi Opitz and the German communist party leader Ernst Thälmann , who were killed by the Nazi regime in August 1939 and 1944 respectively. As an opponent of Germany’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Anna M. insisted on wearing the Kufiya as a symbol of solidarity with liberation movements and the fight against racism, fascism and oppression, as well as an expression of the Palestinian people’s culture and struggle. The Buchenwald memorial foundation responded by reiterating their ban of Kufiya scarfs and confirmed that Anna M. would be denied access to the memorial premises. Thereby formalising the ban.
To challenge this decision, Anna M. filed an urgent appeal to the Weimar Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht Weimar), through ELSC Partner lawyer Roland Meister, seeking an interimmeasure to lift the ban. The foundation stretched logic before the court arguing that the Kufiya has been “associated with anti-Jewish and anti-Western positions since the time of the National Socialist dictatorship”, “a symbol associated with the annihilation of Israel”, its presence would compromise the “dignity of the victims” commemorated at the site, and might provoke other visitors. The foundation continued with the stretched logic claiming that wearing the Palestinian symbol at the memorial site would constitute “instrumentalisation of commemoration for political purposes” and “a deliberate political statement against Israel”. The foundation explicitly argued that wearing the Israeli flag in contrast “does not constitute a political statement, but rather documents, at most, a personal attachment to a state whose existence is not up for debate.”
On 14. August the Weimar Administrative Court rejected the urgent appeal. The Thuringian Higher Administrative Court (Thüringer Oberverwaltungsgericht) later upheld this decision – prompting the current legal action with the support of the ELSC for a subsequent declaration of unlawfulness (Fortsetzungsfestellungsklage).
Anna M. described the broader implications of the case, stating:
“I have been going to Buchenwald for many years to commemorate the history and resistance of those imprisoned there by German fascists. Their oath not to rest until the last guilty arebrought to international justice, to fight Nazism and its roots, to stand up for freedom and peace worldwide is my guiding principle. I refuse to accept that the genocide in Palestine is now denied in this very place – that’s why I am taking legal action. But my case is just one of many cases of anti-Palestinian repression by this foundation. Their silencing of Palestine solidarity must stop, openly addressing the genocide in Gaza must be allowed.”
The institutionalised Anti-Palestinian Repression at Buchenwald and Beyond
“To speak about Genocide is not appropriate at a place like this” – The Buchenwald memorial foundation’s well documented anti-Palestinian repression
The ban on Palestinian symbols at Buchenwald is not an isolated measure, but part of a systematic policy of repression. Anna M’s case only revealed how far they could go to make it visible.
In July 2025, the foundation published a handout that classified Palestinian symbols of Palestinian including the Kufiya as “hostile to Israel” and therefore as antisemitic. The document mentioned the watermelon as “a substitute for the Palestinian flag” and went as far as to describe the phrase “ceasefire now” as “one-sided demand at Israel’s expense”. It warned that even an olive branch symbol could express the connection of Palestinians to their land and can therefore be considered as “a denial of the right of Jewish people to live in Israel”.
Furthermore, the foundation declared that accusing Israel of the well-documented crimes against humanity, Apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people would be “demonising Israel”.
The Buchenwald memorial foundation’s willingness to silence Palestine solidarity became apparent to a larger German and international public when Buchenwald disinvited Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm from the annual commemoration event on April 2025.
This came after the intervention of the Israeli Embassy to Germany against Boehm’s presence at the commemoration ceremony, claiming that Boehm “attempts to undermine the memory of the Holocaust under the guise of science with his talk of universal values”. The memorial foundation quickly published a statement acknowledging Boehm an “internationally recognised German-Israeli philosopher and grandson of a Holocaust survivor” but nonetheless confirmed they were giving in to the Israeli embassy’s political pressure to disinvite him.
When a Spanish student participant in the youth project organised by the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora urged to oppose the Genocide in Gaza in her speech at the same Buchenwald commemoration ceremony, the director of the memorial foundation Jens-Christian Wagner intervened and stated “I consider speaking about a Genocide, like we just heard, as not appropriate at a place like this”. In a subsequent interview he declared the student’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza as an “antisemitic attack”.
Buchenwald is not an exception among German Genocide memorial foundations. In June 2024, the directors of the NS memorial sites in Berlin dismissed -in a joint statement – the students demand for the universities to officially recognise the Israeli Genocide in describing it as an “anti-Israel ideology that refuses to critically assess the present”.
Internationally renowned institutions like the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention have since condemned “the persistent efforts by several high-profile German civil society organisations to deny the ongoing genocide in Gaza and to disseminate disinformation and denialist narratives among German political decision-makers.”
Kufiyas in Buchenwald – Anti-Genocidal campaign sparks outrage and condemnation by German Government
To address the Genocide denial and anti-Palestinian repression committed by the Buchenwald memorial foundation, a coalition of groups and individuals in solidarity with Palestine including plaintiff Anna M. have launched the “Kufiyas in Buchenwald” campaign with an open letter. The coalition demands “to openly address the genocide in Gaza at the Buchenwald Memorial, no bans on Palestinian symbols at the Buchenwald Memorial and no denigration of them as anti–semitic, no entry- or speaking bans on the premises due to solidarity with Palestine or criticism of the apartheid state of Israel”. The open letter was signed by a variety of German and international organisations and individuals – including the ELSC. The call remains open for signings.
In addition, the coalition is planning series of public events and protests around Buchenwald and across German cities in 2026, including a conference on 11 and 12 April. Their initiative has been met with memorial foundation Buchenwald’s disregard, refusals to acknowledge the demands and unwillingness to engage in any form of public discussion of its anti-Palestinian repression.
By condemning and slandering the campaign, the foundation is joining German government officials, media outlets and other proponents of anti-Palestinian repression and genocide denial. The notoriously anti-Palestinian tabloid BILD published pictures and names of the initiators of the campaign in an article titled “These are Buchenwald’s Israel haters”, in which the Federal German Government official antisemitism commissioner Felix Klein and the Israeli ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor incite against the campaign.
The right-wing and racist tabloid is known for publishing denunciatory slander aiming to intimidate anti-genocide voices in Germany. For example: In May 2024 they slandered the German history Professor Michael Wildt, who counts as on the leading experts on the Nazi Regime, as a “Jew-hater”.
The recent slanderous article quotes the Federal German Government Antisemitism Commissioner Felix Klein and Israeli ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor condemning the campaign.According to the article, the President of the association “Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft e.V.” Volker Beck has filed a criminal complaint for incitement to hatred (section 130 of the German criminal code) against the campaigners.
Support the campaign
With regards to the concluded and ongoing legal proceedings the ELSC has launched a fundraiser in support of the campaign. Donate here. Follow the campaign and sign their petition on their website and social media channels.
