Klaasohm, the party where beating women is tradition. Will it end?

On a German island, the region’s festivals dictate that women be hit on the buttocks with cow horns. Nobody thought it was funny, and the joke ended.

An investigation showed how women were beaten with cow horns in Borkum island in the North Seawhere around 5 thousand people live, during the annual Klaasohm festival, on December 5th. In the past, says German radio, the island community had tried to protect the event from the public and the press.

Part of the festival consists of a parade in which women are caught and beaten with cow horns by masked men, the Klaasohms.

In fact, the origin of this party is well known to everyone: It’s called Klaasohm and it’s celebrated on December 5thbut it takes place shortly before and in the context of the Saint Nicholas Day celebrations.

Videos of men in sheepskin and feather costumes “hunting” and beating women on their buttocks with cow horns have put Germany’s Klaasohm festival in the spotlight.

Is the outrage over the centuries-old tradition too little, too late?

— DW News (@dwnews)

At these parties, children leave their clean shoes by the front door, and the next morning they expect to find their shoes filled with small gifts and treats brought by Nicholas. Sound familiar? It sounds, because The legend of Saint Nicholas, an old man with a white beard, is actually where our Santa Claus came from.

However, regions in Germany, such as Bavaria, where the Santa Claus character has a shadowy companion, the Krampustells .

In the report, two reporters try to film the 2023 festivities. Using their cell phones, they secretly film as the community gathers around young, single men dressed in the traditional costumes of the Klaasohms, made of masks with sheepskin and feathers. birds.

The party goes on into the night. In addition to a type of wrestling, reserved for the local community, there is a group of men who chase women and hold them while the Klaasohms beat them on the buttocks with a cow’s horn.

People around, including children, applaud as a woman is beaten. Since the publication of the report, the festival has received numerous criticisms from the international community and within the country itself.

“In Borkum, if we speak openly about the need to end this, we are told we don’t understand the festival, that we are not honoring tradition and that, in some way, we are giving in to pressure from outside the island”, says a former inhabitant.

Speaking directly to the camera of one of the “undercover” journalists, an older woman recalls being beaten as a youth during the festival. She says she was never a fan of the ritual. But make sure that “It’s important for men.”

“The Borkumers grew up like this and that’s the way it is. It’s a purely masculine day. Therefore, it is necessary to ask men, see what they have to say on the subject”, he says.

Now, the festival organization says that this ritual is over. “We, as a community, we clearly decided to leave this aspect of tradition behind“, added the association. Instead, they want to “continue to focus on what the festival really does: island solidarity.”

The president of the City Council, on the other hand, was offended by the report, which he considered biased: the filming “cannot in any way be used as proof that the island tolerates violenceas the report suggests.”