Israel’s consulate in Berlin has lashed out against the state of Thuringia, in what was formerly East Germany, for failing to correct the inscription on a plaque at the site of a former labor camp where many Jews died.
The consulate called it “infamous” that nearly two years after German reunification, the former Dora-Nordhausen camp is marked by a plaque where Communist propaganda still prevails over the truth of the Nazi persecution of Jews.
In fact, in a situation that is unusual even by the old Communist standards, while there is no tablet mentioning Jewish victims, there is one for “victims from Arab states.”
The mayor of Nordhausen, Manfred Schroeter, responded to the Israeli charge with an investigation.
He said he learned that the Arab commemorative tablet had been erected to kowtow to the Arabs, considered friends and allies by the former East Germany and joined together in the battle against “imperialism and the Jews.”
Schroeter said he had been told that no tablet had been dedicated to Jews because, by East German standards, the Jews were not considered a separate people, let alone a nation.
Israeli diplomats in Berlin called the tablet an affront and a scandal and urged the town of Nordhausen and the government of Thuringia to take immediate action.
The Israeli criticism in fact follows an announcement by the state of Thuringia that it will erect a new plaque at the Buchenwald concentration camp to commemorate the 10,000 Jews who perished there.
Nordhausen officials said the memorial at the former Dora labor camp would be rebuilt anyway. They pointed out that plans are being drawn up for a memorial that would be more consistent with historical fact rather than one that reflects Communist ideology.
Thousands of Jews, along with French, Belgian and other countries’ citizens, comprised the 60,000 slave laborers in the underground arms factory where, under wretched conditions, they toiled to build V-2 missiles, to be used against Britain.
A third to one-half the prisoners there died because of the inhumane working conditions.
From 1943 to 1945, Mittelwerk Rocket Works was under the direction of Arthur Rudolph, who was one of about 900 German scientists brought to the United States after World War II in a program called Operation Paperclip, to work on American rocket and missile programs.
He left the United States in 1984 rather than face Justice Department charges that he brutalized slave laborers.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
