Memorial Trees at Ex-Nazi Camp Chopped Down

The Buchenwald concentration camp memorial says that seven trees dedicated to the memory of victims of the Nazi camp in eastern Germany have been chopped down. The foundation that runs the memorial tweeted on Wednesday that the trees near the site were apparently attacked the previous day, per the AP. It posted pictures showing the trees severed about halfway up the trunk and said it was "appalled at the deliberate attack on remembrance." The foundation said it had filed a complaint to police. One of the trees was dedicated to children killed at Buchenwald and the others to six prisoners at the camp.

The trees were part of an ongoing project called "1,000 Beeches" that began in 1999 and has seen 168 trees planted on the prisoner-marching route from the camp to the concentration camp Flossenbuerg. The project organizers note "the crime was discovered on the anniversary of the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in 1944." Buchenwald—which means "beech forest" in German—was established in 1937. More than 56,000 of the 280,000 inmates held there and at its satellite camps were killed by the Nazis or died as a result of hunger, illness, or medical experiments before the camp's liberation on April 11, 1945. (A Buchenwald survivor was killed in a Russian attack on Ukraine.)