A district court in Germany’s capital Berlin has fined a man €3,200 for smashing one of the concrete blocks of the iconic Holocaust memorial located in the city center with two hammers.
The Justice has condemned this citizen – resident in Brandenburg and who has not appeared at the summons – to pay 80 daily fines of 40 euros each to cover part of the repair costs, which amount to 9,000 euros.
The Berlin-Tiergarten Court has ruled that the defendant damaged property and disturbed the peace of the dead. A further financial penalty of 2,400 has also been imposed on him for other offenses of coercion and illegal car racing.
However, the sentence can still be appealed by the 62-year-old citizen, who has been mentioned as possibly being mentally handicapped, and a new trial will be held at a later date.
The monument, erected in 2005 and located on the left side of the Brandenburg Gate, commemorates the nearly six million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany and consists of around 2,700 gray concrete blocks of varying heights.
