Gusen Personnel Committee

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The Gusen International Personnel Committee was a committee that wanted to uphold the memory of the Gusen (I) concentration camp .

founding

It was celebrated on the 61st anniversary of the beginning of the largely independent administration of the Gusen (I) concentration camp on May 25, 2001 at the suggestion of the Gusen Memorial Service Committee and the then Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Austria , Irena Lipowicz , by the Austrian Federal Minister of the Interior , Ernst Strasser , constituted as a committee of leading politicians of good will, in order to finance the renovation of the then already dilapidated Gusen Memorial and the creation of the Gusen Visitor Center, which opened in 2004, as the first projects .

Political goal setting

After decades of Austrian agony (the former Gusen concentration camps were demolished after the end of the war, while only the associated concentration camp near Mauthausen was preserved as a memorial), the Gusen "camp part" of the former Mauthausen double camp - Gusen a contemporary form of remembrance for future generations can be created.

The Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp memorial is a reminder and a mandate for the proponents of the Gusen Personnel Committee. They also undertook to do everything possible to ensure that the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp memorial also has the same significance for future generations that it had for these proponents in 2001.

Special attention should be given to a concentration camp memorial for the camps in Gusen, where resistance fighters and racially persecuted people from all over Europe were tortured, battered and murdered by the thousands for five years. For these camps ( KL Gusen I , III and III ) a memorial should be created that does justice to their importance and dimensions.

In 2001, the proponents of the Gusen Personnel Committee acknowledged the responsibility of the united states of Europe for this concentration camp memorial and wanted to continue to support the institutions in Gusen in the future. They also invited representatives from other countries to take part in the projects of the Gusen Personnel Committee and thus to advocate the preservation of a democratic Europe that is aware of its common history and committed to its common culture.

The international personal committee Gusen wanted to contribute from a “never forget!” To a permanent “never again!” Especially in Gusen.

A worthy memorial Gusen is a special place, especially for the Polish nation, since from 1940 onwards a large part of Poland's intellectual elite , such as teachers, clergy, politicians, etc., were murdered in Gusen . The Upper Austrian Governor Josef Pühringer emphasized at the time that it was important "to turn the sites of crimes into active memorials, into places of conflict."

Founding members

Founding members were:

Other members

Other members tried to create the Gusen visitor center:

Results achieved

The Gusen Personnel Committee made a significant contribution to the fact that the Gusen Memorial was renovated and redesigned in 2002 and that the new Gusen Visitor Center was opened in 2004.

The epochal political achievements of the Gusen Personnel Committee regarding the memorial work in the former Gusen part of the camp, however, did not find continuity due to fundamental personnel and policy changes in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, the resignation of Federal Minister Ernst Strasser in 2004 and the lack of support from the Mauthausen Committee Austria .

It was only when the Austrian Federal Real Estate Company began filling the extensive Bergkristall tunnel systems in St. Georgen / Gusen and "cellar construction" in Langenstein as a result of further political inactivity of the responsible authorities in Vienna that after the sharpest international protests, efforts on the part of the responsible Austrian Federal Ministry began again for the interior to save a small part of the "Bergkristall" tunnels as a restricted underground concentration camp memorial of the former Gusen II concentration camp . In 2010, for the first time since the end of the war, it was possible for concentration camp survivors to enter the former "Bergkristall" tunnel system legally and safely.

swell

  1. ↑ See Rudolf Haunschmied. The population of St. Georgen / Gusen and Langenstein. Dealing with the camp history, rejection and conservation initiatives , In: Memorials for the Victims of National Socialism in Poland and Austria - Inventories and Development Perspectives (proceedings for the conference in the Scientific Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in September 2010 in Vienna), Peter Lang Edition, Frankfurt am Main 2013, pp. 165 ff. ISBN 978-3-631-62461-6
  2. ↑ Excerpt from the founding document “Personnel Committee Gusen” from May 25, 2001
  3. ↑ Excerpt from the founding document “Personnel Committee Gusen” from May 25, 2001
  4. ↑ Excerpt from the founding document “Personnel Committee Gusen” from May 25, 2001
  5. ↑ Excerpt from the founding document “Personnel Committee Gusen” from May 25, 2001
  6. ↑ Federal Minister of the Interior Ernst Strasser in: Press release of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior of April 16, 2002 regarding the "Press Conference Gusen Memorial"
  7. ↑ Ambassador Irena Lipowicz in: Press release of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior of April 16, 2002 regarding the "Press Conference Gusen Memorial"
  8. ↑ Governor Josef Pühringer in: Press release of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior of April 16, 2002 regarding the "Press Conference Gusen Memorial"
  9. ↑ Press release of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior of April 16, 2002 regarding the "Press Conference Gusen Memorial"
  10. ↑ Press release of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior of April 16, 2002 regarding the "Press Conference Gusen Memorial"
  11. ↑ See yearbook of the Mauthausen Memorial Site 2009. Federal Ministry of the Interior. Vienna. Page 50 ff.
  12. ↑ See Rudolf Haunschmied. B8 Bergkristall - Historical Visit of the International Mauthausen Committee on May 7, 2010. Gusen Memorial Committee, 2010.

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