Activity Report 2011
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ACTIVITY REPORT 2011 REMEMBRANCE RESPONSIBILITY FUTURE ACTIVITY REPORT 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................ 6 WORD OF GREETING ................................................................................................................................................................ 8 THE FOUNDATIon “REMEMBRANCE, RESPONSIBILITY AND Future” (EVZ) ............ 10 Activity areas of the Foundation EVZ ................................................................................................................................ 12 What was funded .................................................................................................................................................................................. 14 Annual theme: 1941–2011 | 70th Anniversary of the invasion of the Soviet Union .................. 16 Annual theme: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” – Study on the current educational situation of Sinti and Roma in Germany .................................... 18 Annual theme: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” – Photography Competition ............................................................................................................................................................. 20 Coming to Terms with Historical Injustice in an International Perspective ................................... 24 Start of the conference series “Perspectives. Anti-Semitism in the migration society” ...... 26 goEast, 11th Central and Eastern European Film Festival ............................................................................... 28 Foundation EVZ mourns Noach Flug .................................................................................................................................. 30 ACTIVITY AREA 1: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HISTORY ......................................................... 32 Documentation of Forced Labour under National Socialism ........................................................................ 34 History in Diversity ............................................................................................................................................................................ 36 History Workshop Europe ............................................................................................................................................................. 38 Leo Baeck Programme ...................................................................................................................................................................... 40 Encounters with former forced labourers and other victims ........................................................................ 42 ACTIVITY AREA 2: WORKING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS .............................................................................. 44 Europeans for Peace ........................................................................................................................................................................... 46 International Youth Debate ......................................................................................................................................................... 48 Teaching Human Rights .................................................................................................................................................................. 50 Forced Labour Today .......................................................................................................................................................................... 52 Scholarships for Roma in Eastern Europe ....................................................................................................................... 53 Stop Hate Crime! ................................................................................................................................................................................... 54 ACTIVITY AREA 3: COMMITMENT TO THE VICTIMS OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM ....... 56 Dialogue Forum ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 58 Partnerships for Victims of National Socialism ........................................................................................................ 68 Donations for Victims of National Socialism ............................................................................................................... 70 EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS ....................................................................................................................................... 72 Events .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 74 Publications ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 88 FACTS AND FIGURES ............................................................................................................................................................ 92 Financial Report .................................................................................................................................................................................... 94 Board of Trustees ............................................................................................................................................................................... 102 Board of Directors and Staff ..................................................................................................................................................... 104 Advisory Committees and Juries ......................................................................................................................................... 106 Partners ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 110 PUBLISHING DETAILS ...................................................................................................................................................... 114 TABLE OF CONTENTS ▪ 5 INTRODUCTION Dr Martin Salm (left), Günter Saathoff Dear readers and friends of the Foundation EVZ, With its complex task of keeping alive the memory of crimes committed by Germany during the National Socialism era and making the lessons from the past tangible, the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” carried out successful and wide-ranging work in three thematic activity areas and their respective funding programmes in 2011. Commitment to the victims of National Socialism in Central European partner countries and in Israel remains one of the focal areas of the Foundation’s work. Additional funds from the donation of Deutsche Bahn AG made it possible to significantly expand humanitarian work for victims of National Socialism again in 2011. In line with the will of the donor, the additional funds are being used for medical, social and psycho-social support of particularly needy victims of National Socialism in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, the Czech Republic and other Eastern and Central European countries. The new programme, Donations for victims of National Socialism, is open to additional donors. In addition to the funding activity in its three activity areas, the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” set two main themes for its events in 2011. We took the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union as an occasion for a discourse on remembrance. 6 ▪ INTRODUCTION June 22, 1941 marks a deep dividing line in European history. However, this event and its impact have little part in our remembrance culture. On this day, Hitler’s Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. This racist war of aggression was also explicitly directed against the civilian population of the invaded country. Mass shootings, deportations and forced labour were as much a part of the war’s goals and means as was the extermination of Russian prisoners of war. In 2011, the Foundation held a series of five events to remember the civilian victims especially. They were devoted to the mass shootings in Babi Yar, “euthanasia” crimes of the National Socialist regime in the occupied Soviet Union, as well as the murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma, and Slavs. In addition, on 22 June 2011 the international travelling exhibition “Forced labour. The Germans, the forced labourers and the war,” initiated and supported by the Foundation EVZ, opened in the Central Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow. The opportunity to show the exhibition at this symbolic site and to open it on this memorable date in the presence of eyewitnesses represented a particularly moving moment in the Foundation’s year. This was the first foreign station for the exhibition after its premiere in the Jewish Museum Berlin in September 2010. In this connection and in line with its legal mandate, the Foundation also addressed the question of what paying respect to victims