Anti-Zionist Jews in Germany call out the hypocrisy of the Buchenwald Memorial

A coalition of anti-Zionist Jewish organisations in Germany have faced repression and backlash after a protest at the Buchenwald Memorial.

In 2025, attendees of a service commemorating 80 years since the liberation of the concentration camp were denied entry for wearing keffiyehs. They petitioned the German courts to overturn the decision, but were unsuccessful. The courts argued:

It is unquestionable that this would endanger the sense of security of many Jews, especially at this site.

Ahead of this year’s memorial event, the group once again petitioned the courts to overturn the ban, but it has been upheld.

Now, the group Kufiyahs at Buchenwald (KAB) have launched a campaign aiming to highlight the issue on an international stage.

Buchenwald memorial

In a press conference on 14 April 2026, Tair B., an organiser with Jüdische Stimme, explained how the German state “banned our vigil from being held … on the basis that the [Buchenwald Memorial] is an apolitical place.”:

We challenged this ban in court, but it was upheld [based on the claim that attendees] were hurting the honour of the victims [of the Holocaust] by drawing connections to current genocides and naming continuities.

We refuse to participate in this game.

Nevertheless, the German state has sought to crack down on their dissent.

German hypocrisy

Activists have since been fined for social media posts related to their banned vigil. Rachael Shapiro, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, discussed the penalties, adding:

It is not an arbitrary action. It’s part of the state’s campaign to further criminalize Jüdische Stimme in the context of them being an extremist organization because of the threat that anti-Zionist Jews pose to [the state’s] narrative.

Shapiro described the situation as one of blatant hypocrisy and antisemitism:

The children and grandchildren of Nazis are demanding payment of tens of thousands of Euros from the children and grandchildren of the Jews they slaughtered for opposing the exploitation of the place at which they slaughtered our families in order to maintain their ideological commitment to doing more genocide and punishing us for objecting to it.

Undeterred by state pressure, KAB will continue protesting the decisions of the German state, its courts, and the Buchenwald Memorial itself.

Three goals

Shapiro went on to explain the three goals of their campaign.

First, they are “protesting the ban on the kufiyah and symbols of Palestine solidarity.” Second, the group hopes to expose “the cynical weaponization of the Nazi genocide of European Jews.”

The Buchenwald Memorial and other German Zionist institutions are ferocious advocates of Holocaust exceptionalism … There can be no crime greater or comparable to that of German fascism. Any suggestion to the contrary is criminalized…

[This] allows Germans to dictate and have the final word on what commemoration means, who can perform it, how it can be performed, and where.

Shapiro said: “This absurdity is showcased in the hypocrisy of our intervention” – criminalizing German Jews for commemorating the Nazi Holocaust in the ‘wrong’ way.

The third goal of the protest is to bring the arguments used by “the Zionist management of the Buchenwald site, as well as the German authorities, out into the open” – that is, highlighting the issue internationally.

An international campaign

Shapiro explained the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network wanted to assist the KAB campaigners in

making it very clear to the German state that there is an international watching, and not just in the popular sense, but in the fact that Germany is being brought before the ICJ by Nicaragua for support of Israeli genocide.

The world sees this sick hypocrisy and the racist backwardness of the German state, and it can no longer hide behind its philosemitic circus of ‘memory’ culture.

A spokesperson from the European Legal Support Center further offered their support to the campaign as well.

Over the years, we have observed how administrative, not necessarily legal, protocols, such as neutrality clauses and house rules … are drawn on specifically to exclude Palestine solidarity activists, cancel events and ban symbols.

These administrative acts are often legitimated by prior smear campaigns, declaring that these symbols are insulting or a sign of support for terrorism. Since 2023, we have witnessed an accelerated process of criminalizing Palestinian symbols in the public sphere.

Continuing a tradition of resistance

Both B. and Shapiro remain determined to resist the policing of their political positions and Jewish faith.

B. commented:

As a Jew who grew up in Germany, I’m being expected all the time to be a puppet of the German state and to give my identity … over to state interest … to be used to deepen racism and structures of power that are killing people.

Shapiro said that her dissention was a continuation of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust itself:

My family were survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide. My grandmother was a survivor and escaped Nazi Germany. Her cousins … were part of the Jewish underground resistance to the Nazis. It’s for that reason … that a lot of my organizing work has revolved around uplifting resistance, in all of its forms, to genocide and fascism.

Both see the Buchenwald Memorial as an affront to these histories, whilst claiming to commemorate them. Shapiro continued that the Memorial is:

an especially sour place to watch this sickening weaponization and instrumentalization of our histories, [which are being] used to not just deny the genocide in Palestine, but to criminalize those Palestinians and Palestinian forces who are resisting.

Honouring the dead

This history of resistance is explicitly tied to the Buchenwald Memorial. The memorial’s own website mentions how a commemorative address was written by inmates at the concentration camp, ending with a joint pledge known today at the Oath of Buchenwald:

The destruction of Nazism, down to its roots, is our motto. To build a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal.

Another speaker at the press conference was Peter Eisenstein, honorary president of the European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Detainees. He said:

To me, Nazi ideology and Zionism are synonymous.

It is a view shared by many German Jews today. But unfortunately, the Buchenwald Memorial refuses to uphold the Oath of its former inmates when the atrocities of the state of Israel is concerned. If the genocide in Gaza makes them too uncomfortable, maybe they are unfit custodians to honour the Buchenwald dead.

Featured image via the Canary

By Em Colquhoun

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