Holocaust memorial work to resume

Construction of Germany’s national Holocaust memorial will continue with the participation of a company that co-owned the maker of Nazi poison gas used to exterminate millions of Jews, Germany’s parliament president announced.

Parliament President Wolfgang Thierse said the panel reached a majority decision, with dissent from the leader of Berlin’s Jewish community, Alexander Brenner.

Work on the 15-year-old Berlin project was stopped last month after complaints that an anti-graffiti coating by the Degussa company was being used.

Last week, it emerged that a Degussa thinner has already been used in the monument’s concrete slabs.

Referring to Degussa, Thierse said that the majority concluded that companies involved with the memorial so far should continue “even if these firms are connected with the Nazi regime in the worst possible way”.

The 22-member panel overseeing construction of the memorial effectively overturned its earlier decision not to use Degussa’s anti-graffiti coating. The panel, headed by Thierse, includes German MPs, historians and Jewish representatives.