Memorial Trees at Ex-Nazi Camp Chopped Down

A 'deliberate attack on remembrance,' says group that runs Germany's Buchenwald memorial
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 21, 2022 10:30 AM CDT
Memorial Trees at Ex-Nazi Camp Chopped Down
A woman is seen behind the closed camp entrance with the slogan "Jedem das Seine" ("To Each His Own") at the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 2020.   (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

The Buchenwald concentration camp memorial says that seven trees dedicated to the memory of victims of the Nazi camp in eastern Germany have been chopped down. The foundation that runs the memorial tweeted on Wednesday that the trees near the site were apparently attacked the previous day, per the AP. It posted pictures showing the trees severed about halfway up the trunk and said it was "appalled at the deliberate attack on remembrance." The foundation said it had filed a complaint to police. One of the trees was dedicated to children killed at Buchenwald and the others to six prisoners at the camp.

The trees were part of an ongoing project called "1,000 Beeches" that began in 1999 and has seen 168 trees planted on the prisoner-marching route from the camp to the concentration camp Flossenbuerg. The project organizers note "the crime was discovered on the anniversary of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in 1944." Buchenwald—which means "beech forest" in German—was established in 1937. More than 56,000 of the 280,000 inmates held there and at its satellite camps were killed by the Nazis or died as a result of hunger, illness, or medical experiments before the camp's liberation on April 11, 1945. (A Buchenwald survivor was killed in a Russian attack on Ukraine.)

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