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Swastikas sprayed on signs at Buchenwald camp memorial

October 28, 2022

German authorities are investigating an incident in which swastikas and other Nazi symbols were spray painted on signs at a former concentration camp.

https://p.dw.com/p/4IovX
Buchenwald was the first concentration camp to be liberated by a Western Allied army,
Buchenwald was the first concentration camp to be liberated by a Western Allied army.Image: Martin Schutt/dpa/picture alliance

German authorities on Friday began an investigation into an incident where traffic signs and a map at the former Buchenwald concentration camp were smeared with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

Police said two traffic signs and a sign with a map of the memorial were spray-painted with the symbols Thursday evening. All the signs smeared with Nazi graffiti were removed. 

The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which runs the memorial site, said it was appalled by the incident and called it an "abhorrent attack on the dignity of the Nazis' victims and on our work."

The incident comes after seven trees dedicated to the memory of victims of the Nazi-era concentration camp were chopped down in July. 

The Buchenwald concentration camp was established in 1937. More than 56,000 of the 280,000 inmates held at Buchenwald and its satellite camps were killed by the Nazi regime or died due to hunger, illness or medical experiments before the camp's liberation in 1945.

rm/sms (AP, dpa)