It is imperative to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, the International Auschwitz Committee's Christoph Heubner tells DW, because the danger that people will again be lured down a similar path is ever-present.
German rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang, whose casual references to Auschwitz in song lyrics provoked widespread outrage, visit the extermination camp with Thomas Heubner, vice-president of the International Auschwitz CommitteeImage: picture-alliance/KEYSTONE/Iak/B. Oertwig
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It was in the early 1970s that Christoph Heubner first visited the former concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. There were many more Holocaust survivors alive then, and they had very specific instructions for the young man. "They said, 'We expect something of you now — that you get involved, contribute your emotions and your knowledge, so that our memory is not lost.'"
Keeping memory alive
Ever since, Heubner has regarded this as his mission in life. Now 69, he is the vice-president of the International Auschwitz Committee. He has been working for decades to ensure that the stories of the survivors and victims of the Holocaust are passed on and continue to be told — because soon there won't be any survivors left to tell them.
Heubner helped to set up the International Youth Meeting Center in Auschwitz. In June last year, he took the German rappers Farid Bang and Kollegah on a private tour of the concentration camp Auschwitz I. The invitation was extended after the two men caused an uproar with song lyrics that casually referenced Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
The extermination camp was liberated by the Red Army 74 years ago today. Heubner told DW that it's vital we remember the Holocaust and remember Auschwitz — especially today, because we again find ourselves in danger of being lured down a similar path. "Hatred, populism, attacks on minorities: Auschwitz didn't start in Auschwitz, but in all the towns where people were ostracized and hounded — Jewish people in particular."
Today's world has grown sleepy, he says. "Many people these days seem to take democracy for granted. It's like a comfort blanket that gives them a sense of peace and tranquility." But that tranquility is deceptive, he warns: "Democracy is under attack."
Right-wing populists like the AfD politician Björn Höcke have a problem with Germany's culture of remembrance. Höcke has described the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as a "monument of shame." For Heubner, it's comments like these that are the source of shame. "This is disgraceful talk; unpatriotic, stupid. The German people have just regained their dignity through remembrance."
Heubner says that Germany's sincere and serious efforts to engage with the history of the Holocaust — which was initially denied and suppressed — are particularly appreciated by Auschwitz survivors. At the same time, he warns against "silent remembrance" of the Nazi era, which is what many in the AfD would like to see. Once again, he says, Auschwitz has become the focus of attempts to suppress history, and silence the culture of remembrance.
'Democracy is under attack,' warns HeubnerImage: picture-alliance/ZB/J. Büttner
When Heubner takes school groups through the former concentration camp, he sees how emotional the visit is for the pupils. "They feel responsible — not for what happened, but for what is happening in their present, and how they must shape the future." In Heubner's view, it should be a matter of course for pupils to visit former concentration camps — but he rejects the suggestion that it should be made obligatory. Forty-one percent of German students aged 14 and older do not know that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration and extermination camp, according to a recent Körber Foundation poll.
Despite attempts by those on the right of the political spectrum to push German remembrance culture into the background, Heubner is optimistic and full of fighting spirit when he looks ahead to the future. He points out that there are more Auschwitz memorial events taking place in Germany than there have been for a very long time. People understand that the culture of remembrance emerged from years of hard and painful work. "And we will not allow anyone to ruin that, because it is a seal of quality for our democracy."
'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27. Numerous memorials across Germany ensure the millions of victims are not forgotten.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schreiber
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
A large sculpture stands in front of Dachau. Located just outside Munich, it was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi regime. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power, it was used by the paramilitary SS Schutzstaffel to imprison, torture and kill political opponents of the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Wannsee House
The villa on Berlin's Wannsee lake was pivotal in the planning of the Holocaust. Fifteen members of the Nazi government and the SS Schutzstaffel met here on January 20, 1942 to devise what became known as the "Final Solution," the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory. In 1992, the villa where the Wannsee Conference was held was turned into a memorial and museum.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Located next to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated 60 years after the end of World War II on May 10, 2005, and opened to the public two days later. Architect Peter Eisenman created a field with 2,711 concrete slabs. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Memorial to Persecuted Homosexuals
Not too far from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, another concrete memorial honors the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The 4-meter high (13-foot) monument, which has a window showing alternately a film of two men or two women kissing, was inaugurated in Berlin's Tiergarten on May 27, 2008.
Image: picture alliance/Markus C. Hurek
Documentation center on Nazi Party rally grounds
Nuremberg hosted the biggest Nazi party propaganda rallies from 1933 until the start of World War II. The annual Nazi Party congress, as well as rallies with as many as 200,000 participants, took place on the 11-square-kilometer (4.25-square-mile) area. Today, the unfinished Congress Hall building serves as a documentation center and a museum.
Image: picture-alliance/Daniel Karmann
German Resistance Memorial Center
The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler that ultimately failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Today, it's the German Resistance Memorial Center.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Bergen-Belsen Memorial
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony was initially established as a prisoner of war camp before becoming a concentration camp. Prisoners too sick to work were brought here from other concentration camps, and many also died of disease. One of the 50,000 people killed here was Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who gained international fame after her diary was published posthumously.
Image: picture alliance/Klaus Nowottnick
Buchenwald Memorial
Located near the Thuringian town of Weimar, Buchenwald was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists deported about 270,000 people from all over Europe to the camp and murdered 64,000 of them before the camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1945. The site now serves as a memorial to the victims.
Image: Getty Images/J. Schlueter
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims
Opposite the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a park inaugurated in 2012 serves as a memorial to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma people killed by the Nazi regime. Around a memorial pool, the poem "Auschwitz" by Roma poet Santino Spinelli is written in English, Germany and Romani. "Gaunt face, dead eyes, cold lips, quiet, a broken heart, out of breath, without words, no tears," it reads.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Stolpersteine' — stumbling blocks as memorials
In the 1990s, artist Gunter Demnig began the project to confront Germany's Nazi past. The brass-covered concrete cubes placed in front of the former homes of Nazi victims show their names, details about their deportation, and murder, if known. As of early 2022, some 100,000 "Stolpersteine" have been laid in over 25 countries across Europe. It's the world's largest decentralized Holocaust memorial.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Brown House in Munich
Right next to the "Führerbau," where Adolf Hitler had his office in Munich, was the headquarters of the Nazi Party, called the Brown House. A white cube now occupies the place where it once stood. In it, the "Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism" opened on April 30, 2015, 70 years after the defeat of the Nazi regime.
