Day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism

Speech by the Lord Mayor of Jena Thomas Nitzsche

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The "Day of Remembrance of the Victims of National Socialism" has been observed in Germany as a day of remembrance since 1996 and serves to commemorate all victims of the Nazi regime: Jews, Christians, Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals, political dissidents as well as men and women of the resistance, scientists, artists, journalists, prisoners of war and deserters, forced laborers - the millions of people who were disenfranchised, persecuted, tortured and murdered under National Socialist tyranny. At the end of 2005, the United Nations General Assembly declared January 27 the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust". It has been observed worldwide since 2006.

Next May marks the 77th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the end of the National Socialist regime in Germany. It will be three quarters of a century since the cruelest war - in terms of the number of victims and the countries and regions of the world involved - and an unimaginable machinery of extermination against people came to an end. On the way to this end was the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, the camp that has come to epitomize the Holocaust.

The systematic approach of the National Socialist regime with the aim of the complete extermination of the Jewish people became clear once again when the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942 was highlighted in recent days. The political decision on the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" had long since been made; the focus was now on the organization in detail and the coordination of cooperation between the authorities involved. The protocols show in detail how many Jews from a total of 30 countries and territories throughout Europe were to be exterminated, 11 million people in all.

People captured throughout Europe, mostly Jews, were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau by rail. The countries of origin included Germany, Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The death toll in this camp amounted to around 1.1 million people, approximately one fifth of the total of 5.6 million Jews murdered.

Among those murdered in Auschwitz were around 160,000 non-Jewish victims, mainly Sinti and Roma, Poles and homosexuals. 900,000 people were murdered in gas chambers immediately upon arrival, while a further 200,000 died from illness, malnutrition, abuse, medical experiments or forced labor.

Between January 17 and 23, 1945, around 60,000 prisoners were "evacuated" by the SS, i.e. some were shot and most were driven west on death marches. On January 27, 1945, the prisoners remaining in the camp were liberated by Soviet troops of the 322nd Infantry Division of the I Ukrainian Front. Despite medical assistance, many of the approximately 7,000 surviving prisoners died in the following days.

When we come together today, there is no one among us who experienced the dictatorship of National Socialism for themselves or was even a victim of this regime. 77 years after the end of the Second World War, the opportunity is closing for survivors to tell us directly about their experiences. However, it will remain the case that individual fates handed down to us will make the suffering that took place accessible and comprehensible, perhaps even understandable. Being personally affected can strengthen us against the danger of a repetition of what happened back then and against new, present-day forms of inhumanity.

Around 700 victims of the National Socialist dictatorship have been mourned in Jena: Jews, Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, dissidents, homosexuals, forced laborers and others. The Jena Memorial and Book of the Dead on the city's website is a modern, virtual memorial to the history of all victim groups, which primarily serves the purpose of coming to terms with the past.

But the people of Jena also need real places to pause and remember, and they have created several of these places. The memorial here on the Heinrichsberg was erected in 1948 and was one of the first in Thuringia. In Jena, six plaques commemorate the death march from Buchenwald concentration camp, one of which is opposite here on the cemetery wall. Last year, an information and memorial stele was also erected on the Camsdorf Bridge. Since 1988, the memorial plaque at Westbahnhof has commemorated the Jews, Sinti and Roma deported from there.

Since 2007, Stolpersteine have also been laid in our city, now well over 40 in number, making it particularly clear that the victims were citizens of this city and possibly neighbors of our ancestors. In 2014, the memorial stele in Löbstedter Straße was erected in memory of the Jews interned there and the Jena subcamp, and in 2018 the memorial plaque for the Jewish families deported to Poland was inaugurated. The 60 Jena victims of medical crimes in Pirna-Sonnenstein have been commemorated in the town hall arcades for two years.

The commemoration of the victims of National Socialism must always include the question of how the murderous acts came about and who bears responsibility for them. Victims always include perpetrators. Jena's victims include Jena's perpetrators. The perpetrators were not simply "the SS", "the camp guards", "the National Socialists" or "the Wehrmacht". The perpetrators in Jena were - like the victims - citizens of this city, possibly neighbors of the victims, neighbors of our ancestors. What responsibility do our ancestors themselves bear?

The perpetrators worked in the city administration, in municipal and private companies, in the university, in hospitals, in organizations and associations. The perpetrators in the offices, the employees of the local administration also made industrialized murder possible. Just as the Wannsee Conference was organized at the highest level, it was compliantly implemented down to the lowest level.

In addition to researching the biographies of the victims, we must also look at the perpetrators in Jena and in the city administration. How did the administration function during the Nazi era? Who contributed to its functioning and how? What responsibility did the city administration bear for "Aryanization", medical crimes, forced labour and deportation? The investigation into these questions has not yet been completed in Jena either.

77 years after Auschwitz, anti-Semitism is on the rise again and group-related misanthropy and even right-wing terrorist acts of violence are all too often a current phenomenon. Attacks, insults and threats against politicians, attempts at historical revisionism and radicalization, especially on the internet, are an expression of a social climate that creates a breeding ground for violence.

Dealing with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is a social challenge for everyone in a way that no one could have imagined two years ago and that demands a great deal from many people. From health risks and threats to livelihoods to overburdened hospitals and lonely people. No one, not even politicians, will be able to rule out the possibility that there have been wrong decisions in the daily struggle to get through this time in the best possible way for their own area of responsibility, from city to state to federal level.

However, when people pin yellow stars to their chests these days and draw parallels with Germany 90 or 80 years ago, it is an unbelievable mockery of the victims of the National Socialist dictatorship. These people have not understood what actually happened in Germany and Europe back then, when the genocide was systematically planned and implemented.

A great deal of commitment is still needed to ensure that the events and crimes of National Socialism and the Second World War are not forgotten. Efforts and awareness are still needed to ensure that we stand up for human rights and human dignity in our daily actions. They are the basis for the peaceful coexistence of mankind. Let us act together!