As the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp approaches, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has called for increased funding for a new remembrance culture. “It’s time for a new start, to explain the necessity of remembrance and to declare ‘never again'”writes Habeck in a guest article for the “Tagesspiegel”(Sunday edition).
Eighty years after the systematic murder of Jews, there are hardly any eyewitnesses left to recount the atrocities of the National Socialists. The country is “today facing the new task of maintaining the remembrance”, Habeck said. He criticized the fact that the acts of the NS era are increasingly being manipulated. “And finally, we are in a situation after a phase of serious societal grappling with our past, in which the history is distorted and twisted, words are redefined and this distortion finds its way, unchecked and unchallenged, to citizens through its channels”Habeck wrote in his guest article.
He reported on a meeting with educators who organize trips to memorials for youth. These educators sometimes change the anti-Semitic prejudices of the children. “For such and similar initiatives, for the culture of remembering and re-remembering, we will likely need more resources in the near future rather than fewer”Habeck demanded.