Amicale International Neuengamme Concentration Camp

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International memorial with the sculpture "The dying prisoner" from 1965, donated by the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme (2016)

The Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme (AIN) is an international umbrella organization of prisoner associations commemorating the history of the Neuengamme concentration camp . The Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial is based . Jean-Michel Gaussot has been President since 2015.

history

Soon after the liberation from National Socialism , Neuengamme survivors organized in associations and circles of friends in many European countries as early as 1945. The Neuengamme working group was established in Germany and existed as an all-German camp community until 1965. The concentration camp survivors kept in contact internationally.

The association was founded in 1958 under the name Amicale Internationale de Neuengamme in Brussels and renamed to today's name in 1990. The founding members from Belgium, France and the Federal Republic of Germany included former prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp and its satellite camps . The umbrella organization for prisoners' associations from Denmark, the GDR, Greece, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Hungary later joined.

Today the AIN includes prisoners' associations from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Poland. The association's activities are shaped by the generation of children and grandchildren of former prisoners. The central concern is new ways of passing on the memory of history.

Tasks and activities

Sculpture The Dying Prisoner at the Françoise Salmon Memorial (2006)

The original goals of the AIN included the construction and later expansion of the memorial on the former site of the Neuengamme concentration camp, which was achieved with the establishment of the memorial in 2005. In 1961 the AIN decided to erect an international memorial for the dead of the Neuengamme concentration camp at the former location of the crematorium . It was created based on designs by the architect Guy Perrouin , the sculptor Françoise Salmon and the sculptor Jean Paul Luthringer . In 1965 the memorial was inaugurated in the presence of 1,800 survivors and relatives.

The first projects were the creation of a written description of the Neuengamme concentration camp and the implementation of an international pilgrimage to Neuengamme, which took place in 1960 on the 15th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp. Since its founding, the AIN has held international congresses with its members every several years at various locations.

At the 1995 congress in Biarritz , the statutes of the AIN were adopted. According to this, the aim of the association is to record the survivors and bereaved, the relatives of resistance fighters, the political opponents and the victims of National Socialism who were interned in the Neuengamme concentration camp or its satellite camps.

literature

Web links