Memorial for victims of the NS Regime erected in St. Pölten

Austrian Press Agency (APA) (02/02/2009)

Art project should connect three sensitive places – deadline for submitting recommendation ends June 8

St. Polten – Lower Austria and its capital St. Pölten have indicated that they will hold a competition in remembrance of the victims of the NS regime. The memorial is to be erected in St. Pölten’s district of Viehofen. Where today the Viehofner Lake is located was once the site of a forced labor camp for Hungarian Jews as well as a work camp for so-called Eastern workers from 1944 to 1945, reported in a press release by “Art in the Public Domain of Lower Austria.”

“For sixty years the known existence of this camp was kept silent. An art project will now serve to remind one of this forgotten part of St. Pölten’s history,” said the initiators. The future memorial will put three sensitive places in touch with one another. Next to the two concentration camps is a mass grave located in the city’s cemetery. The deadline for submitting drafts for projects will be June 8.