Anti-Semitism in Europe: Unknown persons cut down trees in memory of those killed in the Holocaust yesterday (Thursday) in the compound of the memorial site in the Buchenwald camp in Germany. There are still no suspects in the act, and the authorities have offered a reward for information that will lead to those responsible for it.
The memorial site in Buchenwald reported that seven trees had been cut down, including a tree commemorating the children who perished in the Nazi camp. The trees were part of a project that began in 1999 in which people with disabilities planted trees along the roads and agricultural paths where the Nazis transferred the detainees to the camp.
“Cutting down trees that commemorated the children who died in Buchenwald and other victims of the concentration camp is a shameful thing and I have no words,” said the director of the Memorial Foundation, Jens-Christian Wagner, who said the act was “a slap in the face to the victims and family members.”
Weimar Mayor Ralph Kirsten has announced that the municipality is offering a € 10,000 prize for information that will help locate those responsible, and Thuringia Prime Minister Bodo Ramlov has promised to help plant new trees. “This cowardly act hurts,” he said. “If trees are cut down to erase the memory of the crimes, it is a re-execution of the crime.”