Remember for the future

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Mariahilfer Strasse / Otto-Bauer-Gasse, 2009
Köstlergasse 11, 2015

Remembering for the Future is an Austrian initiative of the Vienna district of Mariahilf , which was founded in 2007 and relocated memorial stones and plaques for 841 victims of National Socialism who were deported and murdered from Mariahilf .

The initiator is the social democratic district councilor Kilian Franer , chairman of the culture commission. The project coordinator is folklorist and cultural worker Ulli Fuchs. The sponsors of the project are the Mariahilfer Kulturplattform (currently under the chairmanship of District Chairman Markus Rumelhart , formerly under District Chairman Renate Kaufmann (2007-2014), both from the SPÖ ), and the Mariahilf Culture Commission.

target

“Hundreds of innocent people were deported and murdered in Mariahilf for racist, political, religious and other ideological reasons, including their sexual orientation. In honor of these people, memorial objects are to be created in Mariahilf, not least with the aim of counteracting similar tendencies in the present and the future. "

- District Representation Mariahilf : Unanimous decision to justify the initiative "Remembering for the Future"

The memorial stones set in the sidewalk and the wall plaques attached to the facade are intended to encourage passers-by to reflect. “It is an awareness work, a form of coming to terms with the past; the murdered will be given a place in their homeland again. "

context

In Vienna, five initiatives have been established to equip the different neighborhoods with memorial stones: In the Leopoldstadt and a number of other areas of the club's Stones of memory operates in Vienna Highway initiative stones of remembrance and Vienna-Josefstadt the project Stones of Remembrance Josefstadt , founded by the former member of the National Council Irmtraut Karlsson , as well as stones of remembrance in Liesing . While the other initiatives are based on private efforts, the Remembrance for the Future project was initiated by the district council and their elected mandataries.

All five initiatives Viennese memorials to the victims of the Nazi regime , although based on the concept of the stumbling blocks of Gunter Demnig , but reject the notion unison stumbling blocks off. Initiator Kilian Franer: “We have no stumbling blocks in our district. Rather, it is important to us that nobody stumbles because we want to make our district accessible . I already know that the term is meant metaphorically, but we still reject it. "

In chronological terms, the state of Salzburg was a pioneer in the field of memorial stones. As early as July 1997, the first stumbling blocks for two executed Jehovah's Witnesses were laid in St. Georgen near Salzburg , carried out by Gunter Demnig . The initiator of this activity was the memorial service founder Andreas Maislinger . In the city of Salzburg there is a “Stumbling Stone Personnel Committee” with 280 participants, which coordinates the laying of Stolpersteine. Between 2007 and 2014, 240 memorial objects were installed. However, Salzburg is also the site of massive disruptions: in 2011, three stumbling blocks were stolen and 31 memorial stones were smeared with tar. A right-wing extremist suspect with a relevant criminal record was arrested in October 2013 and subsequently convicted. In the historically burdened city of Braunau am Inn , too , stumbling blocks used by Demnig remind of victims of the National Socialist terror regime. Here too, Andreas Maislinger provided the idea behind the project. Letting the brass plaques in the sidewalks also has an important side effect for him: “It's about looking at the floor, bowing to the victims. And one is reminded of the National Socialist crimes. "

Resistance from homeowners

A number of homeowners are opposed to placing plaques on the facade of the house. Elisabeth Ben Hindler-David from the Stones of Remembrance Association in Leopoldstadt : “It was in 2005. My uncle from Israel, my mother's brother, wanted to put up a plaque on his parents' house in Vienna, a memorial plaque for my grandparents in Porzellangasse in ninth district. I have contacted the property management. The homeowner has strictly refused. ”For the most part, her association does not get permission to put up plaques on the facade; if there are several owners, even a party’s no is enough. Therefore, all Viennese initiatives are largely dependent on memorial stones in the sidewalk in front of the respective house.

Advisory Board

The "Expert Advisory Board" of the initiative are:

Criticism and counter-criticism

The project of stumbling blocks, memorial stones and memorial stones is generally viewed as controversial. For example, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , Charlotte Knobloch , criticized that it was unbearable that the names of the victims were set in stones on the ground.

A controversy also arose when Gunter Demnig perceived the Vienna Stones of Remembrance as a plagiarism of his Stolpersteine initiative . The counter-criticism focused on the artist's de facto monopoly on memorial stones: “He does not want other initiatives to take up this commemorative project, but is so fully booked that interested parties have to accept very long waiting times.” Demnig has so far in Austria Stumbling blocks laid in the federal states of Lower Austria , Salzburg and Vorarlberg , in eight communities in the Braunau am Inn district , in Graz and Klagenfurt .

Institutions and initiatives of the same name

See also

literature

  • Kilian Franer (ed.), Ulli Fuchs (ed.): Remembering for the future. A project to commemorate the Mariahilfer victims of Nazi terror . Echomedia-Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-902672-18-6 .
  • Christian H. Stifter (ed.), Behind the Walls of Forgetting… Cultures of Remembrance and Commemorative Projects in Austria, Search for Traces, No. 1–4 / 2009, reference: office@vhs-archiv.at.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f The Jewish Echo : Remembering for the Future by Werner Hörtner , accessed on May 10, 2015.
  2. ↑ In the Mariahilf district there has been a solid red-green majority since 2001. However, the approval of the right-wing parties was also surprising. When asked why the FPÖ also agreed, project coordinator Ulli Fuchs said: “They just didn't want to be naked. In addition, the culture sector is of no interest to the freedom people anyway. All the money for the relocations came from the National Fund of the Republic. A large part of the district's culture budget was devoted to cultural events specially developed for this focus. ”The Jewish Echo: Remembering for the Future by Werner Hörtner
  3. ^ ORF : Many homeowners against memorial plaques , November 11, 2012
  4. ↑ Well-known in the city: Stones of Memory , December 28, 2010
  5. ↑ Remembering for the Future eV , website of the association, accessed on May 10, 2015
  6. ↑ Education portal of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia , Remembering for the Future, accessed on May 10, 2015
  7. ↑ Remembering for the future - Moers eV ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 10, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.erinnernfuerdiezukunft-moers.de
  8. ↑ Remembering for the future . Table of contents as PDF (53 kB), accessed on May 10, 2015