Several political groups in the Bremen City Parliament reacted with horror to a post featuring Vice-President Sahhanim Görgü-Philipp (Green Party). In an Instagram photo, which has since been deleted, captioned ‘Done for today!’, she was seen smiling next to SPD MP Katharina Kähler, holding two suitcases from the City Parliament’s Holocaust exhibition. ‘In my view, she is no longer acceptable as vice-president,’ Jan Timke, leader of the Alliance Germany parliamentary group, told JUNGE FREIHEIT on Friday.
The politician described the picture as ‘tasteless.’ As patron of the exhibition, Görgu-Philipp should have shown ‘more sensitivity,’ he said. ‘Anyone who treats exhibits on the Holocaust in this way does not have the intellectual maturity to hold office.’
NI. Frau Vizepräsident des Landtags Sahhanim Görgü-Philipp (Grüne) und der Soze Katharina Kähler haben „fertig für heute !“. pic.twitter.com/O2u8i1o8QT
— Der Westglasaalkönig⁴². 🔪🪓 (@DerEgica) February 27, 2026
The FDP also complained that the photo was ‘unbeatable in its irreverence’. Party leader Thore Schäck emphasised that ‘mocking Holocaust victims’ in this way was ‘absolutely’ unacceptable. ‘A public apology is the least that can be expected,’ he told the Weser-Kurier newspaper. CDU parliamentary group leader Frank Imhoff expressed similar sentiments. ‘We expect the Vice-President of the Bremen City Parliament, who opened this exhibition herself, to be particularly aware of the dignity of her office and to treat the culture of remembrance with respect and sensitivity,’ he told the newspaper.
Görgu-Philipp herself spoke of an ‘unforgivable mistake’ that she could no longer undo. ‘The whole thing is very upsetting to me, I am so sorry,’ she said. Her SPD colleague Kähler, who had published the photo on her channel, also expressed ‘sincere’ regret. At the same time, she spoke of a ‘momentary lapse’ that she had not thought through sufficiently. Bürgerschaft President Antje Grotheer (SPD) announced that both politicians had already apologised to her. At the same time, she called the image ‘completely inappropriate’.
The exhibition ‘Showing the Unimaginable – Comics Against Forgetting’ opened over two weeks ago. It deals with the artistic representation of the Holocaust through comics and displays original exhibits from the Nazi era, including the suitcases carried by Görgu-Philipp.