Thursday marked the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps in Upper Austria. On this occasion, politicians such as Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, Chancellor Karl Nehammer and President of the National Council Wolfgang Sobotka (all ÖVP) visited the memorials. Karner also met Polish Holocaust survivor Stanislaw Zalewski in Gusen.
Zalewski (97) was abused for more than 500 days under appalling conditions as a forced laborer in the Mauthausen concentration camp and in the Gusen subcamp. “I am deeply impressed by Stanislaw Zalewski’s personality. This person was abused and enslaved and at the age of 97 impresses with his positive will, openness and joie de vivre,” Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) said after the meeting. On Thursday, he visited the memorials in Mauthausen and Gusen together with Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Chairman of the National Council Wolfgang Sobotka, Governor of Upper Austria Thomas Stelzer (all ÖVP) and other members of the Federal Government.
90,000 dead in concentration camps
During the Nazi era, more than 90,000 people died in the camps of Austria. At the commemoration, their names were read aloud and accompanied by a light and sound installation. “Today’s commemoration is part of the active memory culture of the victims of the concentration camps,” Karner said during his visit.
In recent years, the memorial work on the site of the former camp has been regularly expanded. There has been a visitor center for 20 years and the exhibition was redesigned ten years ago. Last year, the republic bought central parts of the former Mauthausen subcamp. Among them are the former parade ground, the gravel crusher and two SS administration buildings. Various groups such as residents and commemorative initiatives must be able to participate in a new layout of Gusen concentration camp.
New fund for school classes
The federal government is now also setting up a new fund to encourage students to visit memorial sites. From next school year, eighth grade classes will be supported with a maximum of 500 euros for a visit to the memorial sites of Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps and the former satellite camps of Ebensee and Melk. In total, this amounts to 1.5 million euros per year.
“Visiting memorial sites by students is a central measure to strengthen the culture of remembrance. It is clear that education and science play a central role for a ‘never again’ and that we need to develop a comprehensive sense of history and democracy at an early stage. have to transfer (…)”, Education Minister Martin Polaschek (ÖVP) said in a broadcast. The president of the Israeli Religious Association, Oskar Deutsch, spoke of an “important contribution to raising awareness and the fight against anti-Semitism.” Unfortunately, fewer and fewer eyewitnesses can now come into contact with young people.
Source: Krone
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