APA/ Tiroler Tageszeitung, January 27, 2020
German Original: https://www.tt.com/artikel/30713602/75-jahre-auschwitz-befreiung-van-der-bellen-tief-entsetzt
On Monday, Austria’s Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen will be at a memorial service at the former NS death camp Auschwitz in Poland. “All too many countrymen tagged along, looked away, showed too little resistance,” said Van der Bellen before the visit.
Oswiecim, Vienna – Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen will attend a memorial service on Monday commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the NS death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. “Visiting Auschwitz is not easy. But it is necessary,” the President informed via a statement before the ceremony. At the same time he referred again to Austria’s shared responsibility for the Holocaust.
He feels “deeply appalled” over what people were subjected to in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Most of the 1.1 million murdered people were Jews, said the President and emphasized that “Auschwitz also stands for the genocide of Roma and Sinti, for the murder of homosexuals, disabled people, the politically persecuted, resistance fighters, deserters, representatives of Polish intelligence, Soviet Prisoners of War and countless people from all over Europe.” Tens of thousands of Austrians became victims of the “National Socialist death machine” as well.
At the same time, Van der Bellen said “I feel shame.” Many Austrians “contributed” to the “Barbarian crime” as perpetrators. “All too many countryman tagged along, looked away, showed too little resistance,” the President criticized. “Anti-Semitism and racism of the National Socialists did not fall from the sky,” he reminded, but “were very present within Austrian society” before.
Counter Disparagement and Attacks on Minorities
It is “our common and firm determination, and our duty” to resolutely counter any germination of misanthropy, racism and anti-Semitism in the present; any disparagement and any attack on minorities, and to defend fundamental rights and civil liberties without compromise, the President pleaded. “Because human dignity is indivisible.”
He appealed to “start at the beginning.” When people are made into outsiders and minorities are attacked, “then we have to stand against it together,” the Federal President emphasized. “This is when civic courage is needed.”
Van der Bellen will meet with Austrian memorial servants (Gedenkdiener serving in Auschwitz) already at noon. During the afternoon, a wreath laying and a memorial ceremony will follow on the grounds of the former death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was erected then during the Hitlerite occupation of Poland. The President of Poland, Andrej Duda, several Auschwitz Survivors, as well as the President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, will deliver speeches. The act of remembrance will end with a ceremony of lights at the Memorial at Death Wall.
120 Survivors Attend the Ceremony
Some 120 Auschwitz Survivors will also attend the memorial ceremony. In addition, the German Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, the French Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, and the wife of the British successor to the throne, Prince Charles, Duchess Camilla, can also be found on the invitation list. The Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the service; he will be represented by Ambassador Sergej Andrejew. The reason is a disagreement between Moscow and Warsaw over correct historiography.
The National Socialist concentration- and death camp complex Auschwitz, close to the Polish city of Oswiecim, serves as a worldwide symbol of the Holocaust. According to estimates, at least 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz. 1.1 million of them were murdered, among them 90% Jews. The Nazis and their helpers murdered a total of some six million Jews during the Holocaust – among them more than 65,000 Austrians. (APA)