Pro-Palestinian Groups Plan Protest at Former Nazi Death Camp

Pro-Palestinian activists in Germany are planning a demonstration at the former Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald during events marking the anniversary of its liberation, according to German and Swiss media reports. The planned action is tied to commemorations held each April at the memorial site in eastern Germany.

Buchenwald, located in the German state of Thuringia, was liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945. About 56,000 prisoners were killed there, including many Jews. The site is considered one of the central symbols of Nazi crimes and Germany’s culture of Holocaust remembrance.

According to reports, radical left-wing groups intend to hold demonstrations and lectures under the slogan “Keffiyehs in Buchenwald.” Participants are said to include the German Communist Party (DKP), the student wing of Die Linke, Germany’s Left Party, and Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, an anti-Zionist Jewish group active in Germany.

The protest is being framed around a dispute that began last year, when a visitor seeking to enter the memorial while wearing a keffiyeh as a political statement against Israel’s policies in Gaza was denied entry. A regional appeals court later upheld the ban.

Organizers have accused the memorial’s management of “spreading Israeli propaganda” and of suppressing pro-Palestinian expression. In statements cited in German media, they also alleged the site promotes “historical revisionism and genocide denial” by advancing what they describe as an Israeli narrative.

Reporting further indicated that one of the leading activists behind the campaign is affiliated with a communist organization that publicly praised the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. In a statement issued after the attack, the group described it as “a legitimate uprising by all means necessary.”

German officials and memorial representatives sharply condemned the planned protest. Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau, a spokesperson for the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation, said the initiative represents “a completely inappropriate instrumentalization of commemoration of the victims of National Socialism for their own political, inhumane agenda.” He added that “groups that celebrate Hamas terror, glorify the October 7 attacks as a ‘great surprise,’ and deny Israel’s right to exist have no place with us.”

Felix Klein, Germany’s federal commissioner for combating antisemitism, called the planned demonstration “a new low in the reversal of roles between victim and perpetrator.” He described it as “a frontal assault on the dignity of commemoration and on the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.”

Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, also criticized the initiative. “Absurd? No, this is Germany of 2026,” he wrote. He added that “a memorial site at a concentration camp becomes a target for a left-wing protest action because it is allegedly not anti-Israeli enough.”

While the liberation anniversary falls on April 11, some German reports referenced an announced protest for April 12 and noted that Weimar’s public order office had not yet confirmed formal registration. It was not immediately clear whether the demonstration would take place directly at the memorial site or in nearby Weimar during the commemorative period.

The Buchenwald Memorial Foundation said it remains committed to preserving historical memory and opposing all forms of antisemitism and incitement.