The management of the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial in eastern Germany is authorized to deny entry to visitors wearing a keffiyeh, a regional court has ruled.
The Thuringia Higher Administrative Court rejected an appeal by a woman who sought to enter the site wearing the scarf as a political statement. The judges concluded that “wearing a keffiyeh at a former Nazi concentration camp endangers the sense of security of many Jews.”
“In this case, the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression must yield to the purpose of the memorial,” the ruling stated.
The case stemmed from an incident in which the woman was barred from entering the memorial during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. She later petitioned to be allowed to attend another event this week while wearing the keffiyeh, but her request was denied. The court said its decision is final and cannot be appealed.
The judges sided with the memorial’s administration, which requires visitors to dress in a manner “appropriate to the memorial and its founding purpose.”
From 1937 to 1945, the Nazis deported around 280,000 people to Buchenwald and its satellite camps, including tens of thousands of Jews. Some 56,000 prisoners were murdered by shootings, starvation, disease, forced labor, torture or medical experiments. U.S. forces liberated the camp in April 1945.