The new Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) has rated the radicalizing corona protests as an attack on democracy.
Weimar – The new Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) has rated the radicalizing corona protests as an attack on democracy. “If the expression of opinion is abused to pursue hatred, agitation and sedition, then a democratic society must refuse it,” said Roth on Friday after a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial near Weimar. It is all the more important to show your face and speak up.
Places like Buchenwald, where human dignity was once tormented, humiliated and destroyed, are of great importance for the culture of remembrance, emphasized the Green politician. This is all the more important in view of those who despise the rule of law and enemies of democracy who want to draw a line and put history into perspective. The visit to Ettersberg was one of Roth’s first official appointments as Minister of State for Culture.
In the face of fewer and fewer eyewitnesses, memorial work must find new formats in order to introduce the younger generation to history, emphasized Roth. “But it doesn’t help if it becomes a compulsory course.” The minister spoke out against compulsory visits to memorial sites by school classes.
After the restriction of access due to the corona pandemic, the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial only received hate mail for vaccinated and recovered people and employees were insulted. Foundation director Jens-Christian Wagner then sharply criticized the equating of the corona protective measures with the Nazi crimes as an attack on the memorial work.
The memorial provides information about the crimes of the Nazi regime as well as about the internment camp operated there by the Soviet occupying power after 1945. Between 1937 and 1945 the Nazis deported more than a quarter of a million people from various countries to the concentration camp on Ettersberg near Weimar. Around 56,000 people were murdered or died of torture, starvation or forced labor. (dpa)
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