Acts of destruction have multiplied in recent days at the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in eastern Germany.

Planted in memory of the victims of the anti-Semitic regime, trees were vandalized last week, an act requiring “a determined response”, estimated Monday the head of the region.

Seven trees planted near the former camp in Thuringia were felled or seriously damaged last week, while two others were destroyed over the weekend, the charity that planted them said.

These trees were part of the “1,000 beech trees” project led by the Lebenshilfewerk Weimar/Apolda organization which has planted them since 1999 along the “death march” of the camp.

“Determined response”

The Prime Minister of Thuringia Bodo Ramelow strongly condemned these acts.

"The perpetrators of such cowardly acts are mentally on the same line as the murderers of all the concentration camps," he judged in the Berlin daily TAZ.

The leader of the Radical Left (Die Linke) interrupted his summer vacation, indicating that he would attend a ceremony in Weimar on Sunday in memory of deported Jewish teenagers.

"The only thing that can help is a determined response" against these acts, he added, specifying that he would participate in the replacement of the trees.

56,000 victims in Buchenwald

More than 56,000 men, women and children perished at Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II.

They were killed by the Nazis or succumbed to disease, cold and hunger.

Thousands of Jews are among the victims, but also Roma, political opponents of Hitler's regime, homosexuals or prisoners of the Soviet Union.

American forces liberated the camp in 1945. The foundation managing the Buchenwald camp memorial has been alarmed more than once in recent years by a multiplication of incidents on the site, such as swastikas tagged or Holocaust denier inscriptions in the visitor's guest book.

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