Horrifying moment a far-right German politician DANCES on Berlin’s Holocaust memorial
- Holger Winterstein was seen in a photo on top of memorial, arms outstretched
- Vast memorial in Berlin commemorates the six million Jews murdered by Nazis
- Israel’s ambassador in Berlin slammed Winterstein for appearing to dance on it
- Winterstein is a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD party)
A far-right German politician has been slammed for dancing on the country’s Holocaust memorial.
A picture posted on social media showed Holger Winterstein posing with outstretched arms on one of the stone slabs that form the memorial in Berlin for the more than six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.
German media reported that the picture was taken after a protest organised on Saturday by Alternative for Germany.
A picture posted on social media (pictured) showed Holger Winterstein posing with outstretched arms on one of the stone slabs that form the memorial in Berlin for the more than six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War
The party, known by its German acronym AfD, said it would take action against Winterstein over his ‘extremely disrespectful behaviour’.
The politician is a county representative in Thuringia, a state in central Germany.
Israel’s ambassador in Berlin slammed Winterstein for appearing to dance on the memorial. Ron Prosor – who is also the former Israeli ambassador to Britain – tweeted that Winterstein had brought ‘shame upon himself and his party’.
‘Mr. Winterstein, everyone is watching you dance while you bring shame on yourself and your party,’ Prosor wrote on Monday.
‘Enjoy your shameful minute of fame because your name will soon be forgotten. The sanctified souls commemorated at the memorial will never be forgotten.’
In 2018, the AfD party’s leader in the state, Bjoern Hoecke, called the Holocaust memorial a ‘monument of shame’ and called for Germany to perform a ‘180-degree turn’ when it comes to the way it remembers its past.
A party tribunal at the time rejected a bid to have him expelled.
Israel’s ambassador in Berlin slammed Winterstein for appearing to dance on the memorial. Ron Prosor – who is also the former Israeli ambassador to Britain – tweeted that Winterstein had brought ‘shame upon himself and his party’. Pictured: The memorial is seen in Berlin (file)
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial, is a vast 200,000 square-foot site (pictured) specifically built as a memorial in Germany’s capital to the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany’s Holocaust
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial, is a vast 200,000 square-foot site specifically built as a memorial in Germany’s capital to the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany’s Holocaust.
It consists of 2,711 grey concrete ‘slabs’ arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field, bearing the names of approximately 3 million of the more than 6 million Jewish victims of the genocide – obtained form Israel’s Yad Vasham museum.
As visitors enter the site, they walk down pathways that slope down, meaning the large slabs grow taller around them, looming above and drowning out external noise.
At the deepest points of the memorial, the slabs are more than 15ft tall.
Construction on the site began in April 2003, and was completed on December 15, 2004 – before being inaugurated on May 10, 2005 – marking sixty years after the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Pictured: A woman walks among the stone slabs of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial. As visitors enter the site, they walk down pathways that slope down, meaning the large slabs grow taller around them, looming above and drowning out external noise
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the systematic murder of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies murdered around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.
Other groups were also systematically killed – including Roma, Poles, Ukrainians, Soviet civilians, homosexuals, prisoners of war and those deemed politically undesirable in the eyes of the Nazis.
The true figure of how many people killed in the Holocaust is unknown, but estimates state that in addition to the six million Jews, 11 million members of other groups were also murdered.
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