International Ravensbrück Committee

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The International Ravensbrück Committee ( IRK ) is an association of the former prisoners of the Ravensbrück concentration camp , the largest concentration camp for women in the so-called German Altreich at the time of National Socialism .

Until 2018, the IRK has members from the following countries: Belgium , Denmark , Germany , France , Italy , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Norway , Austria , Poland , Romania , Russia , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , the Czech Republic , Ukraine , Hungary and Belarus . Not all national communities have currently delegated new members for deceased representatives. Other national groups want to collaborate soon and a. from the UK .

The IRK has an elected executive committee and is registered as an association in Paris . After years of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, this was founded in April 1965 in East Berlin ( GDR ). Eleven countries were founding members. The first female president in office from 1965 to 1979 was the Frenchwoman Renée Mirande-Laval, who had previously coordinated preparatory work, in particular the creation of the first museum in Ravensbrück as an international activity. From 1979 until her death in 1998 Rose Guerin was President of the IRK. From 1999 to 2015, Dr. Annette Chalut elected to office. From 2015 to June 2018 the Slovak Dr. Eva Bäckerová President. Since June 2018 the first representative of the generation of relatives - the Italian Ambra Laurenzi has been elected president. The current vice-presidents are Hanna Nowakowska from Poland, Jeanine Bochat from Germany and Nadja Kalnitzka from Ukraine. Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow (Berlin) and Czech Šárka Kadlecová were elected as General Secretary . The treasurer is Marie-France Cabeza-Marnet from France and Françoise Marchelidon on her behalf. For some years now, only a few survivors of the concentration camp have been represented in the IRK, especially former child prisoners. Women of the second generation, the generation of those born afterwards, whose relatives were imprisoned in the women's concentration camp or those who are otherwise closely connected to the women of Ravensbrück, have taken on the current tasks in the IRK. Where there are no regional associations, individual representatives of a country have taken on remembrance work. The regional associations are independent. Membership in the regional associations is based on the respective national statutes. For membership in the regional associations and the IRK, ideological, religious and other attitudes and actions, as well as the origin, are irrelevant, insofar as they agree with the goals stated in the statute. These are:

  • to secure the historical traces and the memory of the former Ravensbrück concentration camp and its external commandos,
  • to preserve the memories of those detained and those who died there,
  • to watch over the defense of the moral and material rights of the survivors and the families of the dead, to foster friendship between them,
  • to inform future generations and to contribute to the maintenance of peace.

The International Ravensbrück Committee holds annual conferences in different European countries, where former inmates of Ravensbrück and their relatives now live and where the memory of the deportation and the victims of the Nazi regime is cherished. The International Ravensbrück Committee is one of the signatories of the legacy of the international camp communities of the concentration camps, which was handed over to the President of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany , Norbert Lammert , in January 2009.

See also

literature

  • International Ravensbrück Committee: Ravensbrück Women's Concentration Camp 1945–2005. International Ravensbrück Committee, 2005 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Helga Amesberger: Lebendiges Gedächtnis - the history of the Austrian camp community Ravensbrück Mandelbaum-Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-854-76254-6 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Revivre et construire demain Relié - 1994, de Amicale des anciennes déportées de Ravensbrück (Auteur), ISBN 2-9509066-0-5

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