Christoph Heubner is the Vice-President of the International Auschwitz Committee. He wants to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive. Because the danger, again, in similar driving water rates in the course, was always there.
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Interview – Christoph Heubner: “We are always in danger”
It was the beginning of the 70s, as Christoph Heubner visited the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz for the first Time. At that time there was much more of a Holocaust Survivor who taught a very specific order to the visiting group and the young Heubner: “you said: ‘I don’t expect it now what of you, my memory is lost, that you hire yourself and you give of your emotions and your Knowledge here.'”
Keep memories alive
The prompt the minds of today, 69-Year-old as a job for the rest of his life. Heubner is the Vice-President of the International Auschwitz Committee. It has been decades that the stories of the Survivors and victims of the Holocaust be passed on. Because Survivors of this time, there will soon be no more. The youth meeting center in Auschwitz, has built Heubner. In June last year, he led the scandal-Rapper Farid Band and Kollegah through the concentration camp Auschwitz I.
Christoph Heubner with rappers Farid Bang (m.) and Kollegah (R) at the so-called death wall at Auschwitz
Democracy is seen as a matter of course
Prior to 74 years, the extermination camp was liberated by the Red army. The memory of the Holocaust, Auschwitz was so rates are important, because of course today is a danger, in such driving the water, says Heubner, in an Interview the week of DW. “Hatred, populism, aggression against minorities: Auschwitz did not start in Auschwitz, but in all of the cities, where marginalized people and hunted, especially Jewish people.” The world today has become sleepy, says Heubner. “Many a natural duvet that gives you a gentle peace seems to be democracy now.” But this calm was deceptive. “In democracy is shaken”.
Right-wing populists such as the AfD-politician Björn Höcke have problems with the German culture of remembrance. Höcke, to be referred to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame”. For Heubner such Statements are themselves a disgrace. “This is a lot of chatter, unpatriotic, stupid. The German people has just won his Dignity in mind.”
Warning – “silent memory”
The honest and serious debate in Germany, with the history of the Holocaust, which was concealed before, and denied, will be particularly recognized by Auschwitz survivors, says Heubner, and at the same time warned of a “silent commemoration” of the national socialism, as it would many people see in the AfD. Today Auschwitz was again in the focus of Trying to roll back history and the culture of remembrance in silence.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorHouse of the Wannsee conference
The Villa Marlier at Berlin Wannsee is considered to be one of the planning centers of the Holocaust. On 20.1.1942 15 members of the government of the Reich and of the SS met to discuss the approach to the genocide of the Jews vote. Since 1992, the memorial and educational site “house of the Wannsee conference” in the rooms of the Villa.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorThe Dachau concentration camp
One of the first camps during the Nazi era, was built in Dachau, near Munich. Already a few weeks after Hitler’s seizure were incarcerated mainly political opponents of the SS harassed and killed. Dachau served as a model for the subsequent concentration camps in the dominion of the Nazis.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorThe Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds
The Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg from 1933 to the beginning of the Second world war, is home to the largest Nazi propaganda events. On the eleven-square-kilometre Area, up to the annual party conference, instead of Asses, with up to 200,000 people.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorBergen-Belsen concentration camp
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in lower Saxony, Germany, served first as a prisoner of war camp. In the last years of the war here, especially ill prisoners were housed in other Camps. The majority was deliberately killed or died as a result of disease. Of the 50,000 deaths of the Jewish girl Anne Frank, the gained through her posthumously published diaries global awareness.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorBuchenwald concentration camp
Buchenwald, near the Thuringian town of Weimar was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the Nazis deported some 270,000 people from all over Europe here, and murdered a total of 64,000 of them.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorGerman Resistance Memorial Center
In the Berlin bendler block, the centre of the military resistance against Adolf Hitler. A group of military officers to Colonel count von Stauffenberg, failed on 20. To kill July 1944 attempt of Hitler. Some of the Participants were still shot in the same night, in the bendler block. The German resistance memorial center remembers where it is today.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorKilling Institution Hadamar
In the Hessian Hadamar 1941 people were killed with mental illnesses and disabilities. By the Nazis for “unworthy of life”, explains, killed almost 15,000 people by toxic injections and Gas. In total, around 70,000 people were the so-called “euthanasia”program for the victims. The rooms of the former killing memorial Institute today.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorHolocaust Memorial
As the Central memorial in Germany, the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. In the immediate vicinity of the Brandenburg gate, it was on 10. May 2005 inaugurated. The architect Peter Eisenman created a field of 2711 concrete stelae of different sizes. It is for visitors to walk on. An underground memorial exhibition complements the complex.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorMonument to the persecuted Homosexuals
The formal language of the Holocaust memorial the memorial is modeled for the Homosexuals persecuted under national socialism. It was on 27. May 2008 in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park was inaugurated. A glazed Opening with a view of the Interior, in which a movie is shown kissing men’s and women’s pairs in an endless loop.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorMemorial to the murdered Sinti and Roma
Opposite the Reichstag building in Berlin, a garden plant reminds since 2012 to 500,000 in the NS-time Sinti and Roma murdered. On the edge of the fountain is available in English, German and Romanes to read the poem “Auschwitz” by Santino Spinelli: “Eingefallenes face/ dead eyes/ cold lips/ silence/ of a torn heart/ without breath/ without words/ no tears”.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorStumbling blocks
The German artist Gunter Demnig began in the 1990s, a project for the reprocessing of the Holocaust: in Front of the former homes of the victims, he left with plates of brass fastened stones on which the names and circumstances of death are engraved. Over 45,000 memorial stones in Germany and 17 other European countries are, so far, the memorial part of the world’s largest decentralized Holocaust.
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Memorials of the Nazi terrorNS-documentation center in Munich
At the age of 70. Anniversary of the liberation of Munich by the national socialists on 30. April 2015, opened at a historic site a new documentation centre. Where in the past the “Brown house” – the party headquarters of the NSDAP, stand, stands now a white cube. In addition, in the “Führerbau” Hitler had his office. To Berlin and Nuremberg, Munich, illuminate the darkest Chapter of its history.
If Heubner students lead groups through the former concentration camp, he sees how emotional the visit for the young people. “You feel responsible – not for what happened, but for what is happening in your presence and what you need to make for the future.” Heubners view, visits a former concentration camp for students should be a matter of course – to make it a duty, he refuses. While 41 percent of German students from 14 years of age do not know that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration and extermination camp. The survey, commissioned by the Körber Foundation.
Culture of remembrance as a seal of quality
In spite of the Attempts by the right to the German culture of remembrance quieter, looks Heubner also has a positive effect in the future and are aggressive. There are so many commemorative events in Auschwitz in Germany how long. The people understand that the culture of remembrance is hard and painful work. “And let us not broken talk, because it is a seal of quality of our democracy.”
The conversation Thomas Spahn.
Editorial Summary: Rachel Small.