Berlin: Jewish memorial vandalized with swastikas, other graffiti
Sunday, 17 July 2022 (12:22 IST)
Two swastikas and praise for the leader of Nazi Germany were found scratched into a concrete block forming part of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the German capital Berlin Friday.
In a separate incident, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial site pushed back against false reports circulating on the Telegram messaging app that the site would be used to house Ukrainian refugees.
German authorities launch investigation
Police said a security guard discovered the hateful graffiti on Friday morning at the site that serves as a memorial to the six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany and accomplices during the Holocaust.
The memorial, located near the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag, the German parliament, opened in 2005.
It is not the first time unwanted messages of racist hate have appeared on the memorial.
Germany's State Security Service has started an investigation. At present, it is not known who is responsible for the fascist symbols and slogans.
Disinformation targets Sachsenhausen
German police are also investigating disinformation circulating on Telegram channels that the memorial site at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin would be used to house Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia's war against their country.
Horst Seferens, a spokesperson for the site, dismissed the posts and said they were a part of what he suspected to be a "digital disinformation campaign the origin of which is usually in Russia."
A spokesperson for the Nueruppin police force said the department had been contacted by the authorities responsible for the memorial site.
In the immediate postwar period, numerous former concentration camps across Germany became camps for refugees, then referred to as displaced persons, fleeing Soviet domination and those left with no homes or families to return to, many of whom were Jewish, in the east.
Since that time, however, many of the former camps have been turned into memorials and museums.
In 2015, some former concentration camp sites were used to host to refugees. Some of those reports, however, later proved erroneous.
