Kurier, June 22, 2020
German original: https://kurier.at/chronik/wien/baustart-fuer-shoah-gedenkstaette-im-wiener-ostarrichi-park/400947953
64,259 names of murdered Jews shall serve as a warning and remembrance at the same time. The memorial will be completed by Fall 2021.
“Berlin has one, Paris has one. Vienna did not have one - until now,” says Oskar Deutsch. The president of the Jewish Community (IKG) talks about a national memorial for the Jewish victims of National Socialism. As Kurier has already reported on Saturday, such a memorial is now built at Alsergrund.
New Memorial for the Victims of the Shoa
In Ostarrichi-Park, in front of the National Bank, a Shoa wall of names will commemorate the more than 64,000 Austrian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. On Monday, ground-breaking was celebrated - although proper construction of the memorial will not begin until early July. The memorial, initiated by the Holocaust Survivor Kurt Y. Tutter, will be completed in late Fall of 2021.
The “memorial for the Jewish children, women, and men murdered in the Shoa” will consist of several sandstone-colored stone walls in an oval arrangement, in which the 64,259 names of the murdered will be engraved. Inside the oval new trees will be planted - one for each federal state. The easy to reach Ostarrichi-Park will therefore become a place of remembrance.
The project is mainly financed by the public sector. The Council of Ministers decided already in 2018 to cover 4,46 million Euro, a large portion of the total cost of 5.3 million Euro. Another 600,000 Euro are supplied by the federal states. And some 230,000 Euro is contributed by the Austrian Federation of Industries. The City of Vienna ensured the proper dedication in 2018. The architect Wolfgang Wehofer is responsible for the realization.
“A Warning for the Future”
The President of the Austrian National Council Wolfgang Sobotka (OVP), who is also president of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for the Victims of National Socialism, thanked the initiator Tutter during the ceremony on the occasion of the ground-breaking. The latter did bring the Republic “shamefully on a good path” - because it “really is not the task of a Survivor to create such a public memorial.”
“We have nothing to set against the Holocaust - there is no gesture of reconciliation,” Sobotka emphasized. There only exists a gesture of remembrance. The wall therefore is also a “warning for the future.” A clear mission for everyone to fight anti-Semitism and racism. The latter can probably be found both on the right and left fringes, “as well within the Muslim cultural area,” Sobotka said.
Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (OVP), who was instrumental in supporting the realization of the project, did not attend the ceremony because he was “not feeling well,” according to Federal Minister Karoline Edstadler.