Business Insider’s Grace Deen posted photos of the scene to Twitter on Sunday, writing: “The Holocaust Memorial Garden in Hyde Park has now become a makeshift Queen Memorial Garden.” The photos have garnered over 8,700 likes and thousands of replies bashing the “crass” display.
British officials have asked Londoners to place floral tributes to the Queen in dedicated areas at either Green Park or Hyde Park. To help mitigate confusion, The Royal Parks, a charity dedicated to managing London’s royal parkland, has published digital maps highlighting each park’s designated tribute area.
Still, some tributes managed to spill over into Hyde Park’s Holocaust Memorial Garden over the weekend. Deen’s photos show bouquets sitting on and around the stone marking the garden. Mourners also placed flowers, drawings and letters to the Queen on various boulders and tree trunks.
Online commenters called the “makeshift memorial” offensive and “appalling.”
“One of the most absurd, deeply stupid and grossly offensive things I have ever seen,” tweeted sports journalist Colin Millar.
“This is just so inappropriate I can’t even find the words,” caz wrote.
“This is incredibly disgusting and disrespectful,” Joe Clark commented.
Lottie added: “I don’t get the thought process that could lead anyone to do this. [It is] appallingly crass.”
Several Twitter users said the display was particularly inappropriate given the Queen’s familial ties to Nazis.
“This would be deeply disrespectful even if it wasn’t for the matriarch of a bunch of Nazi sympathizing aristocrats,” Ben tweeted.
Some even shared a photo that shows a young Elizabeth II performing a Nazi salute in the gardens of Balmoral castle.
According to The Washington Post, some think the picture was taken in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler was named chancellor. Though the snapshot “says little about Queen Elizabeth’s politics,” it is a “reminder of how many viewed Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party throughout the 1930s—as amusing, even admirable, but not yet the abhorrent force we now know them to be,” the paper said.
Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, and their mother are present in the photo, as is the Queen’s uncle, Edward VIII, who is “alleged to have been among those who sympathized with the Nazis or at least worked to make peace with them,” The Washington Post reported.
The former King reportedly met with Hitler in 1937 to discuss the possibility of him becoming a “figurehead for an international movement for peace on Hitler’s terms,” said the BBC. He also reportedly saw the “early stages of a concentration camp.”
In response to the outrage, The Royal Parks said Monday that a team was “carefully removing” the tributes from the garden and placing them into the “official floral tribute area.”
“There is also a steward placed there permanently to direct people paying their respects to the floral tribute area,” the charity tweeted.
Newsweek has reached out to The Royal Parks for comment.
The Queen’s funeral took place on Monday in London’s Westminster Abbey. Over 2,000 guests joined the royal family at the ceremony, including President Biden and the First Lady.
