Weimar (dpa/th) – After the damage in the summer, the memorial project “1000 beeches” receives numerous offers of support – and can thus replant twice as many trees as were damaged. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) took part in a planting campaign for the project, which commemorates the “death marches” of concentration camp prisoners with the trees. The term stands for the evacuation of the former Buchenwald concentration camp, which the Nazis began shortly before its liberation in early April 1945. Thousands of prisoners were herded towards other camps such as Flossenbürg and Dachau, many did not survive.
“Behind every tree there is a person for whom Buchenwald was a terrible fate,” said Ramelow in advance of the project by the Weimar/Apolda Lebenshilfe-Werk. For a good 30 years, the association has been committed to democracy, cosmopolitanism and an appreciative, respectful coexistence of all people. According to Ramelow, every tree planting is always a reason to look at the Nazi past and at the same time to deal with current challenges for the democratic society in Thuringia and throughout Germany.
