Concentration camp association
The concentration camp association was originally an amalgamation of a number of organizations of Nazi victims in Austria, which took place on July 13, 1945. After the exit of the SPÖ and ÖVP related organizations, the association dissolved on March 8, 1948. The parties founded their own successor organizations, namely the ÖVP, the “ÖVP Comradeship of the Politically Persecuted and Confessors for Austria”, the SPÖ the “ Bund Socialist Freedom Fighters and Victims of Fascism ” and the KPÖ the officially non-partisan but long-term affiliate “ Federal Association of Austrian Resistance Fighters and Victims of Fascism ”(Concentration Camp Association). In the meantime the official name is "Federal Association of Austrian Antifascists, Resistance Fighters and Victims of Fascism (KZ-Verband / VdA)". The KZ-Verband / VdA is an umbrella organization with the regional associations of Burgenland, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria and Vienna, which are independent in terms of association law. The umbrella organization has its seat in Vienna-Leopoldstadt, like the regional association Vienna, and Harald Grünn acts as federal chairman .
Goals and members
Through its seven regional associations, the concentration camp association today unites the last surviving resistance fighters, the victims of fascism, their survivors and the younger generations of anti-fascists. The association is active in representing the interests of the victims of fascism from 1933 to 1945 according to the Victim Welfare Act (OFG), in commemorative work and in the fight against neo-fascism and right-wing extremism. The individual regional associations are part of the federal association.
Well-known officials and employees included Josef Ausweger , Franz Danimann , Heinrich Dürmayer , Leopold Langhammer , Franz Leitner , Jonny Moser , Resi Pesendorfer , Maximilian Petek , Sepp Plieseis , Agnes Primocic , Karl Punzer , Jacques Rotter , Herbert Steiner , Maria Stromberger and Hilde Zimmermann .
Monument on Morzinplatz
The memorial for the victims of the Nazi tyranny (also: memorial for the victims of fascism ) on Vienna's Morzinplatz was illegally erected and unveiled in 1951 as a memorial stone with an inscription at a rally by the concentration camp association. The inscription comes from the then president of the concentration camp association, Wilhelm Steiner . The city of Vienna took care of the memorial stone, which was donated by the concentration camp association and erected without official approval, and in the years that followed, many rallies , some of them international, took place here. The redesign of the memorial took place in 1985 on the initiative of the working group of the concentration camp associations by the sculptor and master stonemason Leopold Grausam and was carried out by the municipal stonemason workshop , whose technical director was Grausam. He supplemented the existing stone block with simple, roughly hewn stone blocks and a bronze figure standing in between . The cube above, which covers the niche with the figure, was cruelly marked with the inscription: “Here [on Morzinplatz] was the Gestapo house. It was hell for those who professed Austria. For many of them it was the forecourt of death. It has sunk into ruins like the millennium. Austria has risen again, and with it our dead. The immortal victims. "
The new reminder call
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Decoration_for_Services_to_the_Liberation_of_Austria.png/150px-Decoration_for_Services_to_the_Liberation_of_Austria.png)
The association magazine “ Der Neue Mahnruf. Journal for Freedom, Law and Democracy ”has been published since its re-establishment in 1948. The current issues of the journal appear online and in print.
Networking
The concentration camp association participates in the platform Now set an example! , which campaigns for the appreciation of Nazi victims, and actively supports them.
The association is also a member organization of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR).
Web links
- KZ-Verband / VdA , website of the association
proof
- ^ Concentration camp associations in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
- ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: ZVR number 667888116 (extract from the association register as of June 10, 2018).
- ^ Page of the Vienna concentration camp association
- ↑ a b Memorial Morzinplatz. In: The former association for research into Nazi violent crimes and their processing. Research Center Post-War Justice (www.nachkriegsjustiz.at), accessed on May 8, 2010 .
- ↑ Peter Diem : The memorial for the victims of fascism. In: Symbols made of stone and bronze. Austria Forum , accessed on May 8, 2010 .