Women from Berlin demonstrated Wednesday against plans to build an enormous shopping mall close to the memorial to victims of the Ravensbruck concentration camp, through which 90,000 women inmates once passed.
The cultural affairs minister of the federal state of Brandenburg, Heinrich Enderlein, called the plans a “scandal.”
The German Jewish community lodged a protest and urged Brandenburg to ban the project, slated for land once occupied by Soviet troops.
The state government is examining the legality of the land sales to developers. But Eberhard Dentzer, director of the memorial, said it was too late. According to Dentzer, “the shopping center is already a fact.”
The protesting women were led by Inge Rabe, whose mother, Erna, was held in Ravensbruck. But Mayor Wolfgang Engler of nearby Furstenberg said recently that his town would not be held hostage to the former concentration camp.
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