The Holocaust memorial in Berlin has been abused by police officers as a sports field.
Berlin – The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin was abused by police officers for push-up training. Berlin’s police chief Barbara Slowik apologized and condemned the Whitsun weekend action, which the newspaper BZ reported on Monday (November 1st, 2021). “The behavior of colleagues is a disregard for what this memorial stands for and does not correspond to the respect that must be shown to it and which is also shown to it by the Berlin police,” said Slowik. “For me it also hurts the memory of those who were murdered.”
On the weekend of Pentecost, the police were on duty for demonstrations in the government district near the Holocaust memorial. A photo in the BZ shows uniformed police officers doing push-ups on the stone blocks of the memorial. They are said to have filmed each other with their cell phones.
Berlin: Holocaust memorial is “place of remembrance and commemoration”
The memorial erected in 2005 to commemorate the six million Jews murdered by the National Socialists consists of around 2,700 different high, dark gray concrete blocks. According to the house rules, running, making noise, jumping from block to block, smoking and alcohol consumption are prohibited there. Some tourists use the area for sunbathing, picnicking and cell phone selfies.
As Slowik emphasized, it is about “a place of remembrance and commemoration” as well as a place of “reminder for the present, for the future”. The police will “make it unmistakably clear to these colleagues, clearly point out the misconduct and deal with the matter in terms of service law”. In view of the very good cooperation with the Jewish community, the police chief apologized expressly.
Police union: “The Holocaust memorial is not an adventure playground”
The police union (GdP) announced: “The behavior of colleagues cannot be surpassed in bad taste. The Holocaust Memorial is not an adventure playground. This inexplicable action mocks the genocide of millions of people and tramples on the values for which our Berlin police stand. ”Even within the police there is apparently still a lot of catching up to do in the area of political education. In Frankfurt, too, there were recently disputes regarding the misappropriation of a Holocaust memorial *. (Lukas Zig / dpa) * fr.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
