Kurier (03/26/2007)
Rechnitz – Some 150 people participated in the ceremony on Sunday afternoon in remembrance of the victims of South Eastern Defensive Wall construction
“The chapter should never be closed on responsibility and forgetting!” In his speech given at Kreuzstadl in Rechnitz on Sunday afternoon, the author, Robert Menasse, spoke against remaining silent and called for freedom of democracy and social welfare.
For the past ten years, victims of the South Eastern Defensive Wall construction (Südostwallbau) are remembered each March. These were victims who lost their lives and were killed during the last months of the war in 1945; above all, the 180 Jewish-Hungarian forced laborers, who within a single night, were massacred by the Nazis and whose last resting place was never established until today. Some 150 people participated in the ceremony on Sunday. Among the group was the representative of the Vienna Israelite Religious Community, the Zalaegerszeg (Hungarian) Israelite Community, the Catholic- and Evangelical Church, a member of the regional government, Michaela Reseta (People’s Party), and Regional Managing Director of the Social Democratic Party, Georg Pehm.
Vilmos Siklosi, as representative of Hungary, unveiled a stone plaque which is to remind one of what happened. “The text, chiseled into the granite, should be a warning that this must never happen again,” said Siklosi as he bowed his head before those Jews murdered in Rechnitz.
The ceremony is organized every year by the association, RE.F.U.G.I.U.S. (Rechnitzer Refugee and Remembrance Initiative and Foundation), who had invited authors to a symposium on National Socialism and the Holocaust, which took place in the City Hall in Oberwart.
Rechnitz – Some 150 people participated in the ceremony on Sunday afternoon in remembrance of the victims of South Eastern Defensive Wall construction
“The chapter should never be closed on responsibility and forgetting!” In his speech given at Kreuzstadl in Rechnitz on Sunday afternoon, the author, Robert Menasse, spoke against remaining silent and called for freedom of democracy and social welfare.
For the past ten years, victims of the South Eastern Defensive Wall construction (Südostwallbau) are remembered each March. These were victims who lost their lives and were killed during the last months of the war in 1945; above all, the 180 Jewish-Hungarian forced laborers, who within a single night, were massacred by the Nazis and whose last resting place was never established until today. Some 150 people participated in the ceremony on Sunday. Among the group was the representative of the Vienna Israelite Religious Community, the Zalaegerszeg (Hungarian) Israelite Community, the Catholic- and Evangelical Church, a member of the regional government, Michaela Reseta (People’s Party), and Regional Managing Director of the Social Democratic Party, Georg Pehm.
Vilmos Siklosi, as representative of Hungary, unveiled a stone plaque which is to remind one of what happened. “The text, chiseled into the granite, should be a warning that this must never happen again,” said Siklosi as he bowed his head before those Jews murdered in Rechnitz.
The ceremony is organized every year by the association, RE.F.U.G.I.U.S. (Rechnitzer Refugee and Remembrance Initiative and Foundation), who had invited authors to a symposium on National Socialism and the Holocaust, which took place in the City Hall in Oberwart.