National Fund Officials Visit Auschwitz Concentration Camp Memorial

An Austrian delegation led by Peter Haubner, Second President of the National Council and Chair of the National Fund’s Board of Trustees, together with the two members of the National Fund’s Managing Board, Hannah Lessing and Judith Pfeffer, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp memorial and historic sites in Kraków.

At the former Auschwitz I Main Camp, the delegation paid tribute to the victims, laying a wreath during a memorial ceremony at the "Death Wall". The subsequent tour included a visit to the Austrian national exhibition in Block 17. This exhibition sheds light on the complex history of Austria during the Nazi era, commemorating the fate of the Austrian victims at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex and, at the same time, examining the involvement of Austrian perpetrators.

At the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp, the delegation paid tribute at the memorial site for Sinti and Roma – cynically referred to in Nazi nomenclature as the "Gypsy family camp" – and visited the ramp and the camp grounds.

The Austrian exhibition as an important place for learning

The Austrian national exhibition in Block 17 is an important place for remembrance and education. To support teachers in their educational work, the National Fund is once again organising a study trip for teachers to Auschwitz this September, in cooperation with erinnern:at.

The working visit to Kraków was rounded off with a visit to the museum at Oskar Schindler’s former enamel factory, in the historic Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, and the Jewish Museum of Galicia, to gain a deeper insight into Jewish life in the region before, during and after the Shoah.

Links

back