By: Savannah Smith | 11-24-2017 | News
Photo credit: AFP

Activists Built Holocaust Memorial Near Far-Right German Politician’s Home

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A far-right German politician called for Germany to stop feeling guilty about Nazi atrocities. There are those who were offended by such remarks while some went out of their way to protest the statement by building a replica of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial outside the politician’s home.

Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician Bjorn Hocke said in a controversial Dresden speech that the Germans were the “only people in the world who planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital”, in reference to the 2,711 gray blocks that were unveiled in Berlin in 2005.

In the same speech, Hocke also said that Germany needed to make a “180-degree turn” when remembering its past and described his country’s citizens as “brutally defeated people.”

In a later interview, Hocke would hit back at criticisms hurled against him for the said speech and said his critics made “a malicious and deliberately denigratory interpretation” of them.

The far-right political party is gaining popularity and support in Germany after the AfD got 13% of the vote at the election. AfD became the first far-right party to sit in the Bundestag in almost 60 years. Such political feat was met with disdain by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In a confrontational and hostile move against Hocke, the Center for Political Beauty erected 24 large concrete slabs next to his home. The group said the memorial will serve as a reminder of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

The activists executed their plan y renting a house close to Hocke’s residence. They placed tents in the garden and worked through the night to build the memorial in secret.

The group has also launched a crowdfunding campaign that has raised about $95,000. They said the fund will help guarantee that the memorial can continue to exist over the next five years.

Hocke condemned the erections of the slabs. Hocke posted a video statement from AfD Thuringia spokesman Stefan Moeller on his Facebook page saying the so-called “artists” are anything but that.

Moeller also described the building of the memorial as “an attack on freedom, the integrity of the family and a monstrous invasion of one’s life.”

Source:

http://ktla.com/2017/11/23/holocaust-memorial-built-outside-home-of-far-right-german-politician

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