Program of the Commemorative Ceremony to Mark the 74Th Anniversary of the End of the War and Liberation of Concentration Camps
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May 3, 2019 Program of the Commemorative Ceremony to Mark the 74th Anniversary of the End of the War and Liberation of Concentration Camps Song “Bella Ciao” The New Choir Hamburg Opening speech Dr. Detlef Garbe, director of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Welcome speech Senator Dr. Carsten Brosda, Minister of Culture and Media Song “Mir lebn eibig” The New Choir Hamburg Speech Karl Paiuk, survivor of the Neuengamme concentration camp from Ukraine Speech Helle Vibeke Sørensen, president of Danish Landsforeningen af KZ-Fanger Fra Neuengamme, daughter of a prisoner of the Neuengamme concentration camp Film project “Memories – What Remains?” Students of Ida Ehre School in Hamburg Song “Zog Nit Keyn Mol” The New Choir Hamburg Wreath-laying ceremony at the former bunker Commemorative ceremony to mark the 74th anniversary of the end of the war and liberation of concentration camps, May 3, 2019, 17:00 Opening speech: Detlef Garbe Ms. Letterie, Vice President of Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme Senator Brosda, ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial I would like to welcome you to this year’s commemorative ceremony to mark the 74th anniversary of the end of the war and liberation of concentration camps, which we organized together with the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme. We are very glad to see so many people come from very far away to visit former satellite camps, attend the ceremony at the Cap Arcona Memorial in Neustadt in Holstein and to pay their respect to the victims of the SS terror here in Neuengamme today. We are grateful to the survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp who undertook a strenuous trip yet again this year, despite their old age, in order to be here with us and to talk to us about their experiences. Natalia Radchenko came from Belarus, Mogens Henrik Nielsen from Denmark, Ivan Moscovich from the Netherlands, Nahum Rotenberg from Israel, Ksenija Olchova from Russia, Livia Fränkel from Sweden and Jewgenij Malychin, Anton Rudnew and Karl Paiuk from Ukraine. This year we have two survivors with us who are attending the commemorative events for the first time: Elisabeth Kischinowsky Masur from Sweden and Margot Heuman from Arizona. 75 years ago, they were both transferred from Auschwitz to different satellite camps of Neuengamme: the Dessauer Ufer camp in Hamburg and the Hanseatisches Kettenwerk armament factory in Langenhorn. We appreciate your being here very much and would like to thank you for it. The survivor who will speak to us today is Karl Paiuk, who was only 16 when he was sent from Lviv to the German Reich for forced labor in 1942. After an escape attempt he was sent to the so-called Arbeitserziehungslager Liebenau (corrective labor camp), from there he was transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp and eventually to one of its satellite camps, the large camp of the industrial conglomerate known as the “Reichswerke Hermann Göring” in Salzgitter-Drütte. He was liberated in Bergen-Belsen. There are many family members of former prisoners among us today. They arrived separately or with delegations from Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Poland. One of them is Helle Sørensen, President of Danish Landsforeningen af KZ-Fanger fra Neuengamme and the daughter of the Neuengamme prisoner Orla Helmuth Rasmussen. Senator Brosda, Minister for Culture and Media, will address the audience on behalf of the City of Hamburg. Given that the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial is a part of the Ministry of Culture and Media which will be the case even after it gains independence and becomes a foundation, Senator Brosda has had and will continue to have a special connection to our work. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Mr. Sharashkin, Consul General of the Russian Federation, Mr. Borkowski, Vice Consul of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland, Mr. Teller, Honorary Consul of Great Britain as well as other representatives of consular corps, members of the Hamburg Parliament, among them Ms. Dobusch, President of the Culture Committee, Mr. Koops, Deputy Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, representatives of the Jewish Community, churches and the Islamic Community in Hamburg. We will also see the film “Memories – What Remains?”, created by the 12th grade students of Ida Ehre School in the course of the cooperation project with the Memorial. Today we are missing many survivors who supported us for decades, told us about their experiences in interviews and testimonies and were dear friends. Among those who have died in the past year, I would like to mention Roland Beaules, Pierre Billaux, André Boulard, Ida Desandré, Jean Mével, André Quinton, Tadeusz Sztalmirski as well as Pascal Valliccioni and Hana Weingarten, who were here with us last year. Those of you who were here last year certainly remember Pascal Valliccioni’s impressive speech. He passionately urged “the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren of the victims and our tormentors to join forces in the same fight” in order to remember, warn about and “condemn any attack on human dignity” today and in the future. In what way the past events continue to have an impact on the families and the public memory and how memory can serve as a warning, especially today when the number of eyewitnesses keeps growing smaller due to the ever-increasing time gap, are the questions that this year’s international forum “Future of Remembrance” has been dealing with in the past two days at the Center for Historical Studies. I would like to thank Swenja Granzow-Rauwald, Susann Lewerenz, Oliver von Wrochem and everyone who helped make this ceremony and numerous other events happen. Special thanks go to Lisa Herbst, our intern, who was in charge of the organization of the entire program including travel arrangements. Church volunteers and the Friends of the Neuengamme Memorial are supporting us again this year by accompanying our guests. I would like to thank the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Bergedorf Borough Assembly, Schleswig-Holstein Memorials Community Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Faundation, Körber Foundation and Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” for financially supporting numerous events you can read about in the program flyers and enabling us to invite survivors to Hamburg. I yield the floor to Senator Brosda. Welcome speech – Senator Brosda International Commemorative Ceremony on the Occasion of the 74th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War and Liberation of Concentration Camps at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial May 3, 2019, 17:00, former workshops of the Walther factory Mr. Paiuk, Ms. Sørensen, Ms. Latterie, Mr. Garbe, ladies and gentlemen, We are here today to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the end of the war and liberation of concentration camps. This day is an important day for us all. It is a day of painful memories. And it is a day to take the responsibility for here and now. I am grateful to all of you, survivors, who are here today with your relatives and your children and grandchildren. I am also grateful to all the students, especially students from Ida Ehre School, who found their way to Neuengamme. On behalf of the Hamburg Senate, I would like to welcome you all to the central commemorative ceremony we have organized together with Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme. Many of you were in Neustadt in Holstein this morning and attended the commemorative ceremony to mark the anniversary of the bombing of ships in Lübeck Bay. As a child I used to spend family vacations in the neighboring town of Pelzerhaken. The way to the memorial behind the steep cliffs was an intrinsic part of the visit to the Baltic Sea and it helped me understand at such an early age how close humanity and inhumanity can be to one another. The death of 7000 concentration camp prisoners who died in flames, drowned or were murdered trying to reach the coast – right before the end of the horror – marks a particularly atrocious chapter in a series of atrocious chapters of the history of the Second World War and Nazi Germany. “Crimes committed in the final stages of the war”, as they were later called by the judiciary, represented the escalation of the Nazi terror and led to the fact that even the expressions like “end of the war” and “liberation”, which should stand for “beginning” and “freedom”, leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth, having adopted the meaning of “end” and “death” as well. You, survivors, who have come to Hamburg with your relatives from many different countries, together with your memories and stories represent a direct link to the past events for us who were born after the war. You keep memories of what happened in Germany in May 1945 alive in a personal way. Thank you for your strength and willingness to be here today. You are facing your own memories and the questions young people want to ask you. The fact that you are here 74 years after your liberation should by no means be taken for granted. Your memories and your stories help us comprehend the incomprehensible and believe the unimaginable. Your testimony of the Nazi horrors is the key, not only to understanding but also to immense responsibility we have to take over today so that the post-war agreement – the promise of “Never again!” - can remain in force in the future. The Spanish author Jorge Semprun, himself a survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp, pointed out in 2005 how important it is to keep spreading the story of one’s experiences because it goes beyond “the necessary but insufficient work of historians and sociologists.” Your lives, your testimonies and interviews at the memorial and your biographies in the exhibition belong to the most powerful evidence of how important it is to shed light upon the consequences of racism, excessive nationalism and discrimination against a particular group.