German court rules buchenwald memorial can ban Palestinian keffiyeh
A German court has ruled that the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial can deny entry to visitors wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf. The Higher Administrative Court in Thuringia rejected a woman’s request to attend a commemorative event while wearing the scarf.
The woman had been turned away in April during the 80th anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation. She argued that her keffiyeh was an expression of political opinion against the memorial’s perceived support of Israeli government policies.
The court decided that the memorial’s interest in maintaining the site’s solemn purpose outweighed her right to freedom of expression. Officials noted that the scarf could threaten the sense of security of Jewish visitors at the site.
Buchenwald, near Weimar, was one of Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camps, where approximately 340,000 prisoners—including Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and Soviet POWs—passed through. Around 56,000 people died at Buchenwald, with an additional 20,000 at its annex, Mittelbau-Dora, where inmates were forced to work on V1 and V2 rockets.
The memorial has clarified that the keffiyeh is not inherently forbidden, but its use alongside symbols that attempt to downplay Nazi crimes may be restricted to protect the memory of victims.
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