Dhe number of visitors to German Nazi memorial sites has increased significantly for the second year in a row. As a survey by the Evangelical Press Service (epd) among the institutions showed, more people visited memorials that commemorate the crimes and victims of National Socialism in 2023 than in the previous year, in which there were still Corona restrictions, at least in the first few months. The level of visitor numbers from the pre-Corona year 2019 has mostly not yet been reached again, but in Hesse it has been exceeded. In addition, some memorials reported an increase in anti-Semitic attacks since Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7th.
In Hesse, the Hadamar Memorial (Limburg-Weilburg district) reported almost 23,000 visitors compared to 15,400 in the end of the pandemic year of 2022. This exceeded the number of visitors in 2023 before the corona pandemic in 2019 (almost 22,100). Attendance at the Breitenau Nazi memorial in Guxhagen (Schwalm-Eder district) also increased sharply last year. According to their own information, almost 8,100 people visited the memorial compared to almost 6,300 in 2022. Before the corona pandemic in 2019, 5,300 people visited the Breitenau memorial.
The Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Brandenburg said it had half a million guests. That is significantly more than the 355,000 in the previous year, but also significantly fewer than the 700,000 visitors from the pre-Corona year of 2019. According to a spokeswoman, around 215,000 people came to the Bergen-Belsen memorial in Lower Saxony. That was more than the previous year, but did not reach the number of visitors from the pre-Corona year of around 250,000 visitors.
70 percent of the approximately 20 documented attacks after October 7th.
The German Resistance Memorial Center in Berlin recorded a significant increase in the number of visitors. According to the company's own information, 96,059 guests were registered last year, 44,323 more than the year before and almost as many as before the pandemic. The Hamburg Memorials Foundation, to which the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial belongs, counted around 146,000 visitors, significantly more than the 108,000 people in 2022.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the number of visitors to the two concentration camp memorials in Osthofen and Hinzert rose back to the level before the coronavirus pandemic in 2023. In Osthofen, almost 14,400 people were counted and a total of 592 groups were looked after, said the State Center for Civic Education. This corresponded to an increase of almost 30 percent compared to the previous year. The former SS special camp in Hinzert received 9,200 visitors, and the number of visitor groups there particularly increased.
Anti-Semitic slogans and visitor entries
Since Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel, some establishments have seen an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks. According to a spokeswoman, around 70 percent of the approximately 20 documented incidents at the Nazi Documentation Center in Cologne occurred after October 7th. As in the Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorials, it is primarily an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements in guest books, emails and on feedback cards.
The Hesse memorial sites Hadamar and Breitenau each reported an incident last year. In Breitenau, during a group tour, a student “spread extreme right-wing slogans and proudly expressed himself about his National Socialist ancestors,” said leader Ann Katrin Düben. According to educational director Judith Sucher, there was an entry in the visitor book in Hadamar with “anti-Semitic and Nazi-relatative content”. The incident occurred after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th.
In the first weeks after October 7th, some seminar participants refused to participate, said Breitenau director Düben. A connection cannot be determined with certainty because the refusal was not justified. In one case, however, drawings with the slogan “Free Palestine” were left on the memorial iPads. Since October 7th, there has been an increase in anti-Semitic comments on the social channels of the Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen memorials.
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