Award for the "Speaking Past" working group

The city of Jena honors the "Speaking Past" working group with an entry in the Golden Book. Since 2007, this group of committed citizens has been keeping alive the memory of Nazi violence in Jena and Thuringia and is particularly committed to commemorating the victims of National Socialism. With a large number of public events and campaigns, the working group has earned recognition and appreciation beyond the city limits, according to the entry in the Golden Book, which the founding members Dr. Gisela Horn and Dr. Wolfgang Rug signed today, Wednesday.

"Knowing this, dealing with this knowledge, remembering the victims with dignity, dealing with the perpetrators and the perpetrator structures - all of this is important for our position today, for dealing with history, our actions in the present and shaping our future," said Lord Mayor Dr. Thomas Nitzsche in his laudatory speech at the new location of Café Wagner in Kochstraße. Not far away - in front of the former children's hospital in Kochstraße - seven more Stumbling Stones will be laid tomorrow, Thursday, for murdered children. Dr. Susanne Zimmermann and Dr. Renate Renner shed light on the topic of child "euthanasia" in Thuringia in a panel discussion prior to the ceremony.

With numerous - often elaborately prepared and extensively researched - campaigns and events such as discussion rounds, lectures, exhibitions, tours or fact-finding trips, the working group commemorates the victims and gives them names and faces, Mayor Nitzsche paid tribute. In addition, those involved are always ready to discuss and debate how remembrance can and should be shaped in order to keep the horror that the victims had to endure in mind and to reach the people of today. "Our community needs a commitment to humanist values and an awareness of history, as you live it."

Background information:
The "Speaking Past" working group was formed in 2007 within the Action Network against Right-Wing Extremism as a continuation of initiatives to prevent the Nazi "Festival of Nations" in Jena. The committed citizens have set themselves the goal of counteracting the growing right-wing extremist movement in Jena and elsewhere through information, educational work and public activities.

Dr. Gisela Horn und Dr. Wolfgang Rug tragen sich ins Goldene Buch der Stadt Jena ein.

© Stadt Jena