‘Keffiyehs in Buchenwald’: Free Palestine Activists Plan Protest at Nazi Concentration Camp
The demonstration is scheduled to coincide with the April 11 ceremony marking the camp’s liberation by Allied forces in 1945. More than 56,000 prisoners died at Buchenwald.
A pro-Palestinian group is planning a protest at the Buchenwald Memorial, the former Nazi concentration camp site in Weimar, Germany, according to a report from Israeli media outlet Ynetglobal. The demonstration is scheduled to coincide with the April 11 ceremony marking the camp’s liberation by Allied forces in 1945. More than 56,000 prisoners died at Buchenwald during World War II.
Ynet reported that the scheduled protest, dubbed “Keffiyehs in Buchenwald” by its organizers, follows an incident last year in which a visitor wearing a keffiyeh was denied entry to the memorial.
Israeli journalist Hen Mazzig claimed on X, “It was later reported that the visitor was affiliated with an organization that had praised Hamas and the October 7 massacre.”
Mazzig noted, “A memorial site is not the place to protest Israel’s policies. Jews at Buchenwald were murdered for being Jews, before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even existed. Second, commemorating 56,000 murdered prisoners should not be turned into a performative protest about keffiyehs.
“Families come to pay their respects, not to hear fake activists shouting about anti-Israel symbols inside Buchenwald,” he wrote, adding that “it is neither the place nor the time.”
I think most of us can agree with Mazzig’s sentiments.
OUTRAGEOUS: Free Palestine activists are planning a protest at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany during the anniversary of its liberation.
About 56,000 prisoners were murdered at Buchenwald, including many Jews, yet the Free Palestine movement is turning the… pic.twitter.com/DShNDGyDy6
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) February 21, 2026
Israeli media outlet Israel Hayom reported that the planned protest “has sparked outrage in Berlin.” Officials describe it as “an assault on the dignity of the victims’ memory.”
Among those involved are the student wing of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East and the German Communist Party (DKP).
The groups accuse the memorial’s management of “spreading Israeli propaganda” and of not being “hostile enough toward Israel.”
This planned protest would not be unprecedented. In May 2024, pro-Palestinian activists staged a demonstration at the Auschwitz Memorial as thousands gathered for the March for the Living ceremony. Held each year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the event brings participants in a silent procession from Auschwitz to the crematoria of Birkenau to honor those murdered by the Nazi regime. In 2024, marchers also commemorated the victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre.
The president of a Palestinian group in Poland that protested the March for the Living told the Associated Press, “Through this protest we want to say that we bow down to the victims of the Holocaust too. At the same time, we demand an end to war, an end to genocide.”
At any rate, the memorial’s managers can scarcely be criticized for turning away a keffiyeh-clad visitor. He was literally wearing the most familiar symbol of the pro-Palestinian movement around his neck.
I would argue that the vast majority of pro-Palestinian protesters don’t actually care about the Palestinians and that many lack a clear understanding of the complex history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many will remember the videos of activists who, when questioned by reporters, could not name the river or the sea they were chanting about.
Although I have never visited the Buchenwald Memorial, I have been to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland. They remain the most haunting places I have ever witnessed. Nothing else compares.
Seventy years had passed since the camps were liberated, yet the pain and suffering of the more than one million people murdered there could still be felt. The atmosphere was stark and desolate — devoid of life. Even the birds, it seemed, had not returned.
At its core, the staged agitation at Buchenwald will serve only to inflame antisemitism and defile the sanctity of a site dedicated to Holocaust remembrance.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
What are they protesting? That the camp was shut down?
That’s the essence of what they’re protesting: that it was shut down while Jews were still alive. Don’t assume the protesters have so much as a shred of decency. Available evidence is that they do not. They’d like to see them—or places like them—reopened and made more lethal.
* With purchase of Palestine at regular price…
Collect the whole set.
The memories of those days are fading.
My father was captured in combat and was a prisoner in a German stalag. Somehow, a Polish Jew came among them and was dressed in an American uniform, and everybody partook in the ruse, calling him Joe. He survived.
Hmm, my father knew someone who survived the War in exactly that way. An American POW had escaped, and the search party found this Jew hiding in the forest, so the camp commandant gave him the missing prisoner’s uniform and papers and told him that from then on he was this person, and was to answer to his name at roll call.
I wonder if it’s the same person.
Stalag 2A Neubrandenburg
I have no idea which camp this person was at, and he’s long gone so I can’t ask him.
What’s the difference between the Palestinians and the Nazis?
Hugo Boss.
That’s to say the Nazis were far better dressed.
Otherwise you’d need a mechanic’s feeler gauge to find the separation.
There are two kinds of Muslims: the first tells you that he’ll kill you for not submitting to allah. The second endorses the first but is happy to let him do the dirty work.
The “Palestinians” (not yet named that) were the Germans’ allies. Since 1945 their aim has been to continue the Great Work.
we demand an end to war, an end to genocide
Only a Progressive would believe you could ever end war.
Neither Palestine nor islam are ‘races’ rather, they are theocracies dedicate to global domination
A read of Dr. Raymond Moody’s book ‘life after life’ reveals it is impossible for God to lie
Yet the Quran states allah lies, but only to his enemies…
Who is the enemy of man?
Satan
Allah is Satan
Nothing is impossible to God, including lying. In Genesis 18:13 God tells Avraham a white lie, softening Sarah’s words to spare his feelings.
Millie, I have no idea what Bible you read, but, first, God CANNOT lie, it is totally against His character. Second, there is absolutely noting in Gen. 18 that even hints ad God telling a “white lie” – 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord?…..
Read for what the meaning is, not what you want it to say
I only read the original Bible, and the lie is right there in the text and couldn’t be more obvious. Sarah’s exact words are reported in the previous sentence. Look at what she said, and at what God told Avraham she said. God softened her words, to spare Avraham’s feelings. That was a white lie. And for thousands of years it’s been accepted as proof that white lies of this sort are permitted.
wearing the most familiar symbol of the pro-Palestinian movement
I would say it “wearing the most familiar symbol of the anti-Israel movement.” Almost none of these people are actually pro-Palestine. They are anti-Israel – Palestine exists only as a force against Israel.
Also, let’s make sure everyone is clear: it’s not the keffiyeh itself that is the issue; it’s the particular pattern on said keffiyeh. Keffiyeh’s are simply a very large bandana (often with fringes) that you can wrap around your head and neck to deal with the desert. It’s that black and white design that Arafat made popular that is the symbol of the Palestinian terrorists. I have one in a nice blue and white pattern with stars of David and Hebrew that says something like “Sons of God” on it in Hebrew. It makes for a much nicer head covering than a t-shirt and bit of cotton rope when I’m playing Moses in VBS. I’m not saying we need to change our language, but do be aware of that distinction. (A keffiyeh is also called a shemagh, which our armed forces adopted in Afghanistan. It’s also very similar to what the Israeli armed forces use over their helmets sometimes.)
I ve had a scarf very similar to the keffiyeh for years
Haven’t been able to wear it for the last 2 years
Have you considered donating it to a man who lost his left hand in a pager accident?
Seventy years had passed since the camps were liberated
Eighty years, Elizabeth. EIGHTY. Two entire generations.
I have been to Buchenwald. The evil is palpable. A lot of the buildings were demolished, but their foundations were preserved. Also, read “The Buchenwald Report” (David A Hackett) to get a measure of things.
Agreed, I also felt a very real sense of evil at Buchenwald.
I grew up next to a gift shop owned by a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and finally Dachau. Amazing man.
I’ve visited Dachau, but the other camp that I was at affected me more. Mauthausen. As far as I remember, all the buildings were still intact. I was the only one there that day. Eerie feeling as I walked through the area of the ovens and into the small gas chamber. I went to my knees in prayer there. The thought of all the suffering overwhelmed me. However, even more overwhelming was the quarry. The “death steps”. I felt tired walking up them with nothing on my back. What was it like with a 100 lb (or more) stone on your back? What waited at the top? The opportunity to go back to the bottom and do it again…if you were “lucky”. If you weren’t lucky, an SS guard, looking for a little entertainment, would order you to jump to the quarry below. A death sentence. If you didn’t do it immediately, you were thrown. Hell on earth. These protestors don’t deserve to set one foot in these sacred places. Not one foot.
I would only note a correction to this comment of Hen Mazzig’s: “Jews at Buchenwald were murdered for being Jews, before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even existed”. While at the time of WW II the world had not yet started referring to arabs living in Mandate Palestine as “Palestinians”, the conflict between jews and arabs in that territory was well underway. Worse yet, there was an alliance between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the axis powers to hasten the extermination of world jewry, both in Europe and in the Middle East. The conflict between jews and the arabs who eventually referred to themselves as the “real Palestinians” had been underway for decades before the culmination of WW II.
Morally depraved people claiming to speak for morality. To it for themselves only, to satisfy their empty selves. Those that truly suffer under oppression are less important than the need to show the world. They create division and make things worse. If only, for a day, they could experience the type of authoritarianism they project. How lucky they are to have freedom to undo freedom for all.
Shoot the protesters dead. Each and every one. (Can I write that?). Tired of such BS.
Yes, you can write it. In the USA at least; probably not in any other country. That’s why this country is special.
Palestinians have no history so they keep stealing ours. It’s disgusting and so much of the world cheers them on. Jews have been around way longer then them but everything is always about the Palestinians. Every Jewish event, remembernace, holiday or anniversary has to be co-opted by these fools because they can’t exist without their hate for us. We survived a genocide so now every war they start is a genocide against them. We were forced into extermination camps so now palestinians say they live in an “open air prison.” We had our body parts experimented on so now Palestinians claim their organs are being stolen. We were burned alive and tuned into ash so now palestinians claim they are being vaporized. And on and on it goes. All of these tragedies that befell my people are nothing we are proud of, and they are all events we have worked hard to move past. Living and living well is the best revenge. That is something these clowns will never figure out, they all worship death.
I wish it was possible to give you 1,000 thumbs up. Unfortunately I’m limited to only one.
Well said.
.
CLANK
“Now youse can’t leave.”
On the contrary, it makes perfect sense for them to be there on that occasion. They will be there to represent their German allies, whose work they are trying to continue.
Exactly
All this protest will do is show that Jew hating Nazi lovers are alive and kicking. Do the so called protesters not understand that, or do they not care?
That’s their goal.
To “protesters” like this the protest itself is the goal. They don’t care about their own supposed cause, don’t care how much this will damage it. The only thing they care about is offending. The angrier people are the better. There’s no line they won’t cross to outrage people. Calling them “Nazi lovers” isn’t accurate, because that would be an actual cause to believe in, as vile as it is. They’re nihilists.
Reminds me of this line from “The Big Lebowski”… “Nihilists! F*** me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”
These “protesters” don’t believe in anything at all.
It depends. I think you’re right about most of the protesters at US university campuses, and those that overflow from those onto the streets. But the organizers and many of the participants do have an ethos, and it either directly involves killing Jews, or it involves overthrowing the US government and all non-Marxist governments.
They could point out that it was European anti-Semitism that drove the Jews out of Europe, creating this whole impossible situation in the first place. https://shorturl.at/fSwok
And it was Arab antisemitism that drove Jews out of their lands. But ultimately antisemitism is not responsible for Israel’s existence, which is what the Arabs object to. Jews have always intended to return to Israel, as soon as that would become a practical option. Israel belongs to the Jews, we are its native people, and the Arab trespassers have always known that, ever since they moved there, whether in the 8th century or the 20th.
Jews have never had a home but Israel, and never will; every other country, however hospitable, can only be a temporary stopping place. And as soon as the prospect of a significant number of Jews returning home and not being subject to Moslem rule became a possibility, the Arabs immediately reacted with murder, mutilation, and rape, because that is how they act.
The war on Israel has never ever been about “poor dispossessed Palestinians”. No Arabs were dispossessed; the returning Jews bought land from the registered owners, and never took it by force. To this day, whenever the Israeli government takes land for public use as all governments do, it is only with fair market compensation. And it happens about as rarely as it does in other countries. Had the Arabs behaved like civilized people and welcomed the returning Jews rather than killing them, they would all have prospered as the economy boomed. The returning Jews wanted nothing but to live in peace with whoever else wanted to live in our land, but the Arabs refused. And that is the entire basis of the conflict, and always was.
I read your essay, and it’s profoundly misguided.
1. Leo Baeck was not an authority on what Judaism is. Anyone who thinks it’s about “social justice” (i.e. socialism and whatever is the leftist cause du jour) knows nothing about it.
2. The land of Israel was not “someone else’s land”. It has never belonged to the Arabs, and the Arabs never ruled it, at least not in the past thousand years. It was ruled by Kurds, Turks, and sundry other people, and then by the British, so the people who have now decided to call themselves “Palestinian” never had it. They were always subject to someone else, and would have been no worse off under Jewish rule, where they would have been equal citizens, something they never were before under anyone. They rejected that for no other reason than that they couldn’t bear to see Jews prosper and be free of Moslem rule.
Ironically Hitler, facing a man-power shortage, allowed Muslims to create SS divisions:
13th Mountain Weapons Division
21st Mountain Weapons Division
23rd Mountain Weapons Division
They started to enroll Turkish Muslims in 1944, but the division was never completed.
Then there was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohamed Amin al-Hussein. He was a member of a prominent Arab Jerusalem family, he held the office of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (the highest Muslim judge in Palestine ) from 1921 to 1948 and was a leading figure in the resistance to Zionism and the creation of the Jewish state.
In 1937, following a visit by a German delegation led by Adolf Eichmann to Palestine, al-Hussein expressed his solidarity with Germany, asking the Third Reich to oppose the creation of a Jewish state, stop Jewish immigration to Palestine, and provide weapons to its Arab militias so they could exterminate the Jews living in Israel.
It’s not ironic. There was no reason Hitler shouldn’t have accepted Moslem help. Their interests were aligned. While Hitler was of course an atheist, he admired Islam as a far better superstition than Christianity, which was tainted by its Jewish roots. He wished that the Moslems had won at Tours, and that modern European culture had a Moslem foundation rather than a Christian one. So it made perfect sense for him to ally himself with Moslems.
Too bad this can’t happen again:
In 2003, the Polish Air Force invited the Israeli Air Force to participate in the Radom Air Show to mark the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Polish Air Force. Amir Eshel, then a Brigadier General, was an amateur historian who had investigated the question of why the Allies did not bomb Auschwitz during World War II. He implored his commander, Dan Halutz, to accept the invitation with the condition that some of the planes could fly from Radom to Auschwitz as a tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.[1] Eshel, himself a son of Holocaust survivors, along with pilots Avi Maor and Avi Lebkowitz and weapon systems officer Shimshon Rozen, participated in the air fair with both ground and aerial displays.
The flight from Warsaw Radom Airport to Israel included the flyover of Auschwitz, nicknamed Flight 301, so the pilots did not have to change or extend their flight route. On September 4, 2003, three F-15 planes took off from the Radom airport in bad weather and flew about 200 km above a thick layer of clouds before descending to a low altitude of 1,200 feet and flying in formation over the camp. They flew over the gate, the railway, the ramp, and the array of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers, while Amir Eshel read a short paragraph he had written especially for the occasion over the intercom system. The paragraph honored the victims of the Holocaust and reaffirmed the commitment of the Israeli Air Force to protecting the Jewish people and their country, Israel:
We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Air_Force_flight_over_Auschwitz
I wonder if Tucker Carlson will join the Keffiyeh parade? Seems right up his alley these days.