The 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 (Evangelischen Pressedienstes) among the institutions showed, more people visited memorials commemorating the crimes and victims of National Socialism in 2023 than in the previous year, when there were still Corona restrictions in place, at least in the first few months.
However, the number of visitors from the pre-Corona year of 2019 has mostly not yet been reached again. In addition, some memorials reported an increase in antisemitic attacks since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th.
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.
Berlin: German Resistance Memorial Well Visited
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 Bavaria, the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial was unable to match the number of visitors in 2019 with 79,600 visitors, but according to its own information, significantly more people in Flossenbürg took part in supervised programs such as guided tours and project days, even in a pre-Corona comparison. According to a spokeswoman, there are no exact figures from the Dachau concentration camp memorial near Munich, as there are no tickets or visitor counts as part of the free visits. The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Foundation near Weimar was not yet able to provide any specific figures for the past year.
Between 1933 and 1945, the National Socialists murdered almost six million Jews across Europe and North Africa – by gassing, shooting or starving. Experts estimate that around 17 million people died in the Holocaust.
Israel at war: Attacks are increasing in Germany
Since Hamas ‘ terrorist attack on Israel , some establishments have seen an increase in antisemitic 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 antisemitic and anti-Israel statements in guest books, emails and on feedback cards.
Stefan Querl, head of the Villa ten Hompel historical site, headquarters of the public order police under National Socialism, in Münster, observes in conversations with guests “a massive shift in discourse” towards antisemitism. Since the renewed escalation in the Middle East conflict, Villa ten Hompel has received increasing inquiries from teachers about how political, antisemitic provocations can be countered in everyday school life, says Querl. A spokesman for the Dachau Memorial reports that right-wing motivated attacks are shifting to the digital space. According to the company’s own information, there has been an increasing number of antisemitic comments on the social channels of the Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen memorials since October 7th.
