Free – Free 80 years ago – Mauthausen Commemoration: “Everyone is responsible”

The unveiling of the more than four meters high pillar in Mauthausen took place in the presence of Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner, deputy Christine Heraberlander of Upper Austria (both ÖVP), State Secretary Jörg Leichtfried (Spö) and the head of the Mauthausen -Demonstrations, Barbara. They all emphasized the importance of a lively culture of memory.

“Uniform, recognizable labeling”
Together with local initiatives, the Mauthausen Memorial Memorial Office “has developed a uniform, recognizable labeling” for the more than 40 former outdoor warehouse of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp system. The former town of offenses are brought into a topographical context to make the Mauthausen spatially tangible, explains the Mauthausen Memorial. But not only at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial, but at any location of a former outdoor warehouse, it must be pointed out to the entire system, which also follows the deportation paths of the concentration camp prisoners.

Karner thanked everyone, especially the regional memorial initiatives, “who supported and promoted this important process of visualization of the horror”. Especially the regional research of history is “a load -threatening pillar of a modern memorial culture,” he said. HAmerlander emphasized: the promise ‘never again’ renewed and filled with life. This is why we oblige our responsibility for the dead and respect for the survivors. “

Memory of the victims “don’t look back”
Leichtfried also sees a reminder of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp. “We all bear responsibility – not only to remember, but also to defend what has been created in recent decades: a strong republic, a resilient democracy – for freedom, for humanity, for social peace.” Happiness emphasized that the memory of the Nazi victims does not look back, but a look. Because there are questions: “How do we want to live together as a society? Which values ​​do we pass on? And how do we deal with the responsibility that the story has imposed on us?” Only by thinking together does an active memorial culture arise “.

Controversy in parliament
Before commemoration, the Parliament had a new controversy around national President Walter Rosenkranz (FPö). The presence of the parliamentary chairman had led to the president of the Israeli cultural community (IKG) Vienna, Oskar Deutsch and the chairman of the Mauthausen committee, Willi Mernyi remained away from the memorial event in parliament. They opened an exhibition in Heldplatz on Monday.

Rosenkanz is a member of the German National Brotherhood Olympia, which is classified as a right -wing extremist by the Documentation Archives of the Austrian Resistance (Döw). However, he did not play an active role in the memorial in parliament, the opening speech held the second national council President Peter Haubner (ÖVP). Descent of two victims and a resistance hunter had their say.

Van der Bellen: May 5 “Memory and Order”
Federal President Alexander van der Bellen also emphasized that this day was “memory and order” to “stay loud, to look and consciously appreciate and strengthen basic values ​​such as human dignity and solidarity”.

Spö Boss and Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler also remembered that the memory at the same time was a “mission for the future” that “hatred and agitation, exclusion and violence, anti-Semitism and racism with all strength”. “Never again” is no longer an empty formula, Greens-Baas Werner Kogler emphasized: “It is a promise against trivialization, repeating.”