A Saarland Holocaust memorial stele was defaced with feces for the 11th time since January last Wednesday, according to local officials, police, and an organization that maintains the site.
State police and the Saarbrücken public prosecutor's office confirmed with The Jerusalem Post that an investigation had been opened into suspected incitement to hatred and malicious damage of property in response to the vandalization of the St. Wendel area memorial. The prosecutor's office believes the repeated incidents are connected, but by Thursday, there were no suspects.
One of seven steles in the area, the defaced memorial commemorating Jewish life in St. Wendel destroyed by the Nazis has often been cleaned by the passersby who reported the incidents, according to the Adolf Bender Center's Research and Information Center on Antisemitism (RIAS) Saarland.
“RIAS has observed a growing number of attacks on memorial sites across Germany. The recent incident in St. Wendel, due to the constant repetition of such acts and the public accessibility of the location where the crime was committed, demonstrates a lowering threshold for antisemitic acts. The case reveals the urge to actively repress Holocaust remembrance. The commemoration of the victims of National Socialism is being mocked,” said RIAS Saarland project manager Petra Melchert.
Not just a mere prank
“A positive aspect is the committed action of civil society in this case. Several passersby reported the incidents, cleaned the stone, and expressed their outrage. The laying of flowers and candles also shows that active remembrance is taking place at this site. It is important that people do not look away and actively engage against antisemitism.”
St. Wendel district administrator Udo Recktenwald denounced the vandalism as not just a mere prank but an attack on society, historical memory, and responsibility.
"Together with many partners, including the Adolf Bender Center, we are working to develop a responsible culture of remembrance in our region, we support democratic projects, and we stand up against antisemitism, hatred, and incitement," Recktenwald said in a Tuesday statement.
"The increasing importance of this is evidenced, not least, by the growing number of attacks on memorial sites – nationwide and, unfortunately, also here in our area. We will not be deterred by mindless vandalism, quite the contrary!”
According to Melchert, the stele and its siblings had been established in 2014 as “Places Against Forgetting.” Each site contains a stele, an information plaque, and benches. The project was an initiative of the Adolf Bender Center and the Kultur-Landschafts-Initiative Sankt Wendeler Land, with funding by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth's Demokratie leben program.