Memorial service
The memorial service is an Austrian volunteer serving as six to twelve months of foreign service in Holocaust - memorials , museums and research institutions with respect to Holocaust research can be done. The work at the numerous locations mainly consists of designing and organizing guided tours and events, archive work, holding lectures at universities and schools, as well as discussions with contemporary witnesses and their documentation so that their experiences are not forgotten.
Voluntary service is promoted by the state and the foreign servant is released from his community service after completing his service of at least ten months .
Not to be confused here is the Austrian Service Abroad, which offers a memorial service, and the Memorial Service Association. The Memorial Service Association looks after around 20 memorial servants, the Austrian Foreign Service Association around 60 - as of June 2018.
Sponsorship
Two memorial service organizations form a global network for Holocaust memorials , museums and research institutions that want to take advantage of assistance in their archives, libraries, etc. "The intention of the memorial service is to emphasize the admission of Austria's complicity in the Holocaust and to make us all aware of our responsibility to fight for a" never again "." (Excerpt from the speech of the former Austrian Chancellor , Franz Vranitzky , in Jerusalem , June 1993).
history
Prehistory from 1980
The Innsbruck political scientist and scientific director of the Braunauer Zeitgeschichte-Tage, Andreas Maislinger , campaigned for the legal anchoring of this type of military alternative service, which had the aim of educating about the Holocaust , from the end of the 1970s . On October 10, 1980, at the invitation of Anton Pelinka, he had the opportunity to present his “community service in Auschwitz” in the ORF broadcast “Cross-examination” directed by Dolores Bauer . However, Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger rejected his concept on the grounds that " an Austrian has nothing to atone for in Auschwitz ". Later on, Kirchschläger recognized “ the positive result ” of the “ memorial service implemented ” by Maislinger .
In 1980/1981 Maislinger and Joachim Schlör volunteered in the Poland department of the German Action Reconciliation Service for Peace , headed by Volker von Törne and Christoph Heubner . At the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum he looked after German youth groups. After his return he was even more convinced that a similar program would also be implemented in Austria. He was supported above all by Simon Wiesenthal , Teddy Kollek , Ari Rath , Herbert Rosenkranz , Gerhard Röthler and Karl Pfeifer . One of Röthler's sons later did a memorial service himself and Pfeifer published an interview in the IKG magazine “Die Gemeinde”.
Realization in 1991
In May 1991 Andreas Maislinger was finally informed in a letter from Interior Minister Franz Löschnak that the memorial service had been approved by the Austrian government as an alternative to civilian service and that the necessary funds would be borne by the Federal Ministry of the Interior within a specified framework . On September 1, 1992, the first memorial servant took up his duties at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum .
Superordinate Foreign Service Association 2001
In 2001, under Minister of the Interior Ernst Strasser, a foreign service support association was set up which distributes the funds to independent sponsoring organizations.
Amendment to the Volunteer Act 2014
The changes made it possible to do a memorial service as a woman or a man who does not have to do civil service and to receive the same stately funding.
Recognitions
“ As a former Polish political prisoner in a fascist concentration camp and as a historian of the Second World War, I would like to take the honorable opportunity to speak in front of the House to express my heartfelt thanks to those many Austrians who work tirelessly to remember the past . I am thinking especially of the people from the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance under the direction of Prof. Wolfgang Neugebauer, of the Austrian camp community Mauthausen, of the memorial service, and also of the local initiatives of the communities of Gusen, Langenstein and St. Georgen in Upper Austria, to the Working Group for Heritage, Monument and History Preservation. "
“ Thank you for informing you about the positive result of the memorial service you carried out. I acknowledge that the project you initiated has become more fruitful and probably also more healing than I imagined at the time. "
“ The memorial service is a particularly impressive initiative. "
“ I feel very close to this organization and have tremendous respect for the memorial servants, because what they do is the right way for Austria - to look the past straight in the eyes and do something about it. And not to say we were the first victims. "
“ I have often said that there is no Austrian association that sends young people to Israel like the German organization“ Aktion Sühnezeichen ”. I was therefore touched to read that, thanks to your commitment, there is now the opportunity to do Austrian civilian service as part of a “memorial service”. "
“ I support and recommend the“ Memorial Service ”initiative. It is a real service that our country and young people can and should provide. "
“ Many people have no idea what these young Austrians can do for them, that they can straighten their backbones so that we can all walk upright again, including myself, who I myself belong to this generation. "
“ I am following the work of the memorial service with great interest, and the memorial service has my full support. "
Sponsoring associations
The associations organize the selection and support of volunteers who have applied for one of the deployment positions abroad, before, during and after their service. The role of Austrians as perpetrators, victims and spectators is particularly taken into account.
Association memorial service
Walter Guggenberger ( SPÖ ), Andreas Hörtnagl ( ÖVP ) and Andreas Maislinger (independent) founded the memorial service association in 1992, which was supposed to provide educational work about the Holocaust , its causes and consequences.
In 2008, for the first time, female volunteers will receive funding from the newly created Geschwister-Mezei-Fonds. This was set up with the aim of giving women the opportunity to do memorial service under the same conditions as civilian substitute service workers. With the amendment to the Volunteer Act in 2014, this was made possible for all sponsoring associations. This association received the Leon Zelman Prize in 2013 .
In June 2018, the Memorial Service Association announced that it would only look after the class starting in mid-2019 and then cease operations due to lack of funding. In December 2018, the association announced that it would continue to send memorial servants.
Austrian Service Abroad (before 2005 Association for Services Abroad)
In 1997, Andreas Maislinger and Andreas Hörtnagl were voted out of office as chairmen of the Memorial Service Association and so, after a lengthy dispute with the new board of the Memorial Service Association, they founded the Association for Services Abroad in January 1998, renamed the Austrian Foreign Service in 2005.
Never forget association (activity discontinued)
The association asked for positions at a total of 19 memorial sites in Germany and Poland . The association Never Forgetting was active in youth work against forgetting and was a co-designer of the Hermann Langbein Symposium "Ideology and Reality of National Socialism" for teacher training , which has been taking place for more than 10 years . In 2017 he stopped his activity due to additional bureaucratic burdens.
Job sites
- Buenos Aires - Asociación Filantrópica Israelita (AFI) - Hogar Adolfo Hirsch (San Miguel)
- Brussels - CegeSoma - Center d'Etude Guerre et Sociéte
- Brussels - House of European History (planned)
- Berchtesgaden - Documentation Obersalzberg
- Berlin - Anne Frank Center
- Berlin - German Resistance Memorial Center
- Berlin - Jewish Museum Berlin
- Fürstenberg / Havel - Ravensbrück Memorial and Memorial
- Munich - Jewish Museum Munich
- Oranienburg - Sachsenhausen Memorial
- London - Jewish Care - Holocaust Survivors' Center
- London - JW3 Jewish Community Center Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
- London - The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide
- Oradour-sur-Glane - Center de la Mémoire d'Oradour
- Paris - Amicale de Mauthausen
- Paris - Bibliothèque et archives d'alliance Israélite Universelle
- Paris - Foundation for the Mémoire de la Déportation
- Strasbourg - The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe
- Jerusalem - Yad Vashem
- Tel Aviv - Anitta Müller-Cohen parents' home
- Tel Aviv - Wiener Library for the Study of the Nazi Era and the Holocaust - Elias Sourasky Central Library
- Milan - Centro Di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea
- Marzabotto - Scuola Di Pace Di Monte Sole
- Prato - Museo della Deportazione
- Predappio - Comune di Predappio
- Rome - Fondazione Museo della Shoah
- Montreal - Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention Foundation
- Toronto - Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Center / Hillel Canada
- Krakow - Galicia Jewish Museum
- Lublin - Majdanek Concentration Camp Memorial
- Oświęcim - Auschwitz Jewish Center
- Oświęcim - Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum
- Warsaw - Museum of the History of Polish Jews
- Laibach - National Museum of Contemporary History
- Madrid - Centro Sefarad Israel (planned)
- Prague - Terezin Initiative Institute
- Prague - Prague Jewish Community
- Theresienstadt - Theresienstadt youth meeting place
- Istanbul - Jewish Museum (planned)
- Budapest - Tom Lantos Institute
- Los Angeles - Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
- Los Angeles - Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Los Angeles - USC Shoah Foundation for Visual History and Education
- New York - American Jewish Committee
- New York - Leo Baeck Institute (planned)
- New York - Museum of Jewish Heritage
- New York - World Jewish Congress (planned)
- Richmond - Virginia Holocaust Museum
- Washington DC - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Movies
- Republican Club - New Austria Vienna, November 21, 2012: REMEMBERING FOR THE FUTURE - 20 years of memorial service 1992 to 2012 - Rep.Cub November 20, 2012 Peter Huemer with Andreas Maislinger , Eva Nowotny , Anton Pelinka YouTube , 87 min.
Well-known former memorial servants
- Ralph Gabriel , architect , since 2000 employee of the Sachsenhausen Memorial ,
- Gebi Mair , Neuengamme Memorial 2002/03, member of the Tyrolean state parliament
Awards
- In 2005, Andreas Maislinger received the Silver Medal of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria from Federal President Heinz Fischer for founding the memorial service .
- In 2005 he received from Herwig van Staa and Luis Durnwalder , the Medal of Merit of the State of Tyrol awarded.
- On October 10, 2009, Andreas Maislinger was awarded the Weltmensch Prize by the Weltmenschverein.
- On November 8, 2009, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for the realization and management of the memorial service at the 2nd Annual Dinner of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, alongside Holocaust survivor and producer of Schindler's list Branko Lustig .
- On November 23, 2009, Thomas Böhler was awarded the Elfriede Grünberg Prize by the Wels Initiative against Fascism for his memorial service in Prato .
- On January 13, 2011, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde für Tirol and Vorarlberg dedicated ten trees to Andreas Maislinger “in recognition of his commitment to the memorial service” through Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael near Jerusalem. IKG President Esther Fritsch presented the certificate in the Innsbruck synagogue .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Press archive and letter archive ( Memento of May 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) document the aforementioned commitment to the memorial service since 1977.
- ↑ March 1988.html "Community service in Holocaust memorials": Dr. Peter Huemer and Dr. Andreas Maislinger, ORF Moment - Leben heute, March 9, 1988
- ↑ Andreas Maislinger: "ZIVILDIENST" in Auschwitz , Stattblatt - Linzer program and concern magazine 22/1980
- ^ Letter from Dr. Rudolf Kirchschläger to Dr. Andreas Maislinger, Vienna February 3, 1995
- ↑ July 1982.html Lonely among angels of peace: Conscientious objector Andreas Maislinger lives alternative peace service, PROFIL, July 12, 1982
- ↑ March 1988.html "Community service in Holocaust memorials", Dr. Peter Huemer and Dr. Andreas Maislinger, ORF "Moment - live today", March 9, 1988
- ↑ January 1993.html Teddy Kollek on the memorial service project (Tiroler Tageszeitung, January 12, 1993)
- ↑ December 1982.html Interview with Dr. Andreas Maislinger, Die Gemeinde, December 22, 1982
- ↑ July 1991.htm Letter from Interior Minister Franz Löschnak to Andreas Maislinger , Die Gemeinde, July 22, 1991
- ↑ September 1992.html Positive response to Austria's first civil servant who serves in the former Auschwitz concentration camp , Tiroler Tageszeitung , 12./13. September 1992
- ↑ March 2001.htm Civilian: New Association for Foreign Services - "Association for the Promotion of Foreign Service" , Der Standard, March 5, 2001
- ^ Letter from Rudolf Kirchschläger to Andreas Maislinger ( memento of July 8, 2002 in the Internet Archive ), February 3, 1995
- ↑ Gerhard Marschall : Kohn's great praise for the memorial service , Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, November 9, 1999
- ↑ Statements ( memento from August 23, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ), auslandsdienst.at, October 27, 2001
- ↑ Memorial service stops work orf.at, June 8, 2018, accessed June 8, 2018.
- ↑ Remembrance service continues. December 20, 2018, accessed May 10, 2019 .
- ↑ Gerhard Marschall : June 1997.html "Keine Spielwiese", Oberösterreichische Nachrichten of June 18, 1997
- ↑ December 1997.html "An umpire in memory", KURIER, Tyrol, December 5, 1997
- ↑ February 1998.html Memorial Service no longer just backwards , Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, February 2, 1998
- ↑ Uncertain future for memorial services - derStandard.at. Retrieved on May 10, 2019 (Austrian German).
- ↑ Buenos Aires, Argentina - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Santiago, Chile - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Berlin - AFZ, Germany - GEDENKDIENST. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Berlin - GDW, Germany - GEDENKDIENST. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Fürstenberg / Havel, Germany - GEDENKDIENST. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Oranienburg, Germany - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ London, Great Britain - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Chania, Greece - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Akko, Israel - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Jerusalem - LBI, Israel - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ^ Jerusalem - YV, Israel - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Tel Aviv, Israel - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Monte Sole, Italy - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b Amsterdam, Netherlands - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Lublin, Poland - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Oswiecim, Poland - MEMORIAL SERVICE. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ a b departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 8, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 8, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Departments. In: Austrian Service Abroad. Retrieved on May 8, 2019 (German).
- ↑ People - Dr. Andreas Maislinger ( Memento from April 28, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Braunauer Rundschau, September 29, 2005
- ↑ Award from the Weltmenschverein , October 10, 2009
- ↑ Memorial Service: Award in the USA , salzburg.orf.at, August 28, 2009
- ↑ Certificate: 10 trees in the mountains of Jerusalem ( Memento from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), IKG Innsbruck to Andreas Maislinger, January 2011
literature
- Anton Legerer, Judith Pfeifer, Stephan Roth, Martin Horvath: Beyond the line. Memorial service in the discourse about Austria's National Socialist past. Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 2002. ISBN 3-85409-367-5 .
- Stefan Stoev: Time Bridge - Generational Contacts, Insights into History, Friendships
- Anton Legerer: crime scene: reconciliation. About the action atonement, peace services in the FRG and the GDR and memorial services in Austria. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2011. ISBN 978-3374028689 .