Umer Bin AjmalAt first glance, Buchenwald Memorial's latest booklet reads like a routine guide to identifying extremist symbols, an attempt to shield the memory of Nazi atrocities from being misused.
But as you flip the pages, a contradiction emerges that has come to define the German sense of fairness. Nestled among unmistakably hateful signs like swastikas, SS runes and neo-Nazi logos lies a very different list: a watermelon, a red triangle, a key, the word "genocide", and even a slogan like "Ceasefire Now".
These, the memorial says, may be signs of anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment.
The 57-page guide, titled "Problematic brands, codes, symbols and signs of right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic groups" and published on Monday, is meant for staff at memorials and museums to spot far-right extremism. It remains unclear what the memorial staff would do if they come across unwelcomed symbols.
Buchenwald Memorial is one of Germany's most important Holocaust remembrance institutions, which is built on the grounds of former Nazi concentration camps, and is funded by a federal ministry.
Its inclusion of symbols tied to Palestinian identity, particularly since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023, has drawn concern from civil rights advocates, academics and even European diplomats.
Ori Goldberg, an Israeli scholar of religion and politics, expresses deep concern over what he calls the "cheapening" of anti-Semitism in current discourse.
"It's shameful that anti-Semitism is being reduced to a tool for defending Israeli policy. Symbols like 'Ceasefire Now' or even 'From the river to the sea' are being framed as hate speech, not because they target Jews, but because they challenge the Israeli state. That's a misuse of history," Goldberg tells TRT World.
He questions the ongoing conflation between Judaism and the Israeli state, particularly in countries like Germany where historical guilt plays a major role in policymaking.
"There's never been a synonymity between Israel and Judaism. Half the world's Jews live outside Israel. So if someone wants to label criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism, the burden is on them to prove that it's actually hate against Jews, and not against a government or military policy."
Goldberg is also critical of how the Holocaust is invoked in this context.
"Israel has been using the Holocaust like a trump card, claiming moral immunity because of its history. But that weaponises victimhood. It turns the victim into the aggressor and silences meaningful debate," he says.
When context becomes contested
Among the examples flagged in the Buchenwald Memorial's document are a slice of watermelon, often used online as a substitute for the banned Palestinian flag.
It also includes the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", which is widely used by Palestinian solidarity groups but remains a target of the Israeli far-right that is against the creation of a Palestinian state.
The booklet even finds controversy in the picture of a key, which Palestinians display as a sign of hope that they will return to their homes taken from them during Nakba in 1948.
Even innocuous words, such as "Ceasefire Now" and "Stop Genocide", are also labelled by Buchenwald as anti-Semitic symbols.
Buchenwald terms the "Ceasefire Now" slogan a "unilateral demand at the expense of Israel" and blames Hamas for refusing the truce.
However, multiple reports have since confirmed that it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who stalled calls for a truce and, consequently, the release of Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian group in Gaza.
The guide argues that such phrases and images, especially when used at commemorative sites, "can cross the line from political protest to Israel-hate".
But to others, this feels like a broad brush.
"Even if an opinion is morally dubious or just plain wrong, the German constitution says you still have the right to express it," Thomas Fischer, former president of the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest court, was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera.
He added that criminal law shouldn't be used "to ensure that the only opinions expressed are those the German government agrees with".
Blurring of anti-Semitism and political protest
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas carried out its attack on Israel and Israel responded with deadly and disproportional strikes on Gaza, anti-war protests have swept across Europe.
Germany, which holds a unique post-Holocaust commitment to Israel's security, has ordered police crackdowns on rallies, including detentions for carrying watermelon art or chanting "ceasefire".
This isn't the first time Germany has taken a hard stance.
In 2020, Berlin banned Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia group. In 2022, the government clamped down on Nakba Day events. But critics say the latest developments mark an escalation, where symbols of Palestinian identity themselves are now treated as red flags.
"This is part of a broader pattern in Germany, what they often call their 'memory culture', which is closely tied to Holocaust remembrance," Hadas Emma Kedar, a Jew born in Haifa and a PhD student for Communication Studies at Germany's University of Hamburg, tells TRT World.
"It tends to align strongly with the Israeli narrative, sometimes even more rigidly so. Since October 7, that tendency has been sharply weaponised, where anything seen as supportive of Palestinians is framed not just as anti-Israel, but as anti-Jewish."
Kedar, who comes from a Holocaust surviving family, adds that while not every memorial site in Germany may follow this path, the decision by the Buchenwald Memorial appears to reflect that wider political direction.
"There's a consistent effort in Germany to conflate anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian positions with outright anti-Semitism," she says. "And this has drawn criticism, even from leading Holocaust scholars like Omer Bartov and Amos Goldberg to name a few."
The booklet doesn't focus solely on Palestinian imagery. It also devotes considerable space to identifying explicitly neo-Nazi groups and banned symbols.
These include the Keltenkreuz (Celtic Cross), which is often used by the far right as a stand-in for the swastika, clothing brands like Thor Steinar and Consdaple, worn to signal ideological allegiance, and phrases such as "Klagt nicht, kampft" ("Don't complain, fight"), which appear frequently in far-right music and propaganda.
The memorial says the inclusion of these signs are a part of an ongoing effort to guard against right-wing extremism — a threat, they say, is rising again in Europe.
Even so, critics say putting peace slogans on the same list as neo-Nazi tattoos undermines the credibility of the guide. The problem, they argue, isn't protecting remembrance, it's misplacing the threat.
Human rights concerns grow
Human Rights Watch has warned that governments across Europe, including Germany, must not conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has accused Israel of apartheid and disproportionate force in Gaza — claims hotly contested by Israeli officials but backed by international law experts.
"I am concerned by indications that the working definition of antisemitism... is being interpreted by some German authorities in a manner that equates any criticism of Israel with antisemitism," Michael O'Flaherty, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, was quoted as saying by Euronews.
The United Nations, too, has expressed alarm.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk recently warned that "rhetorical policing" of protest language can chill legitimate expression and obscure the urgent realities on the ground.
Even former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has noted the growing discomfort.
"Every time someone disagrees with the policy of one Israeli government - (they are) being accused of antisemitism," Reuters quoted Borrell as saying in November last year.
"I have the right to criticise the decisions of the Israeli government, be it Mr Netanyahu or someone else, without being accused of antisemitism. This is not acceptable. That's enough."
Goldberg, in an interview to TRT World, questions Buchenwald Memorial's decision to label pro-Palestinian imagery as potentially anti-Semitic.
"A site like Buchenwald should protect the universal lessons of the Holocaust, not take sides in an ongoing political conflict," he says.
"Associating with a state accused of genocide, even indirectly, only diminishes the very memory the memorial seeks to honour."
