A German court has said that a Nazi concentration camp memorial has the right to refuse entry to those wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.
The higher administrative court in the eastern state of Thuringia rejected a request from a woman to be allowed entry to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial while wearing a keffiyeh.
According to local media reports, the woman was turned away when she attempted to attend a commemorative event marking the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation in April while wearing the scarf.
She then petitioned the courts to allow her to return to the memorial for another commemorative event this week while wearing a keffiyeh.
The court found that the memorial was within its rights to deny her entry, pointing to the woman’s declared aim of “sending a political message against what she saw as the (memorial’s) one-sided support for the policies of the Israeli government.”
“It is unquestionable that this would endanger the sense of security of many Jews, especially at this site,” the court said.
The director of the memorial, Jens-Christian Wagner said the keffiyeh was not per se “a forbidden symbol” at the memorial.
“However when it is used together with other symbols… to relativise Nazi crimes, then we would ask people to remove those symbols,” he said.
