Commemoration of the victims of National Socialism
Mayor Barbara Ludwig calls on citizens to take part in the commemorative event on 27 January in the Park of the Victims of Fascism
To mark the nationwide day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism, a commemorative event will take place next Wednesday, 27 January at 10 a.m. at the memorial in the Park of the Victims of Fascism. The address will be given by the Mayor of Chemnitz, Barbara Ludwig. She is calling on residents to take part in the commemoration. Karla Brümmer will also speak at this event as a representative of people with disabilities.
Between 1939 and 1945, the National Socialists deported and murdered hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities. Karla Brümmer puts these victims at the centre of the commemoration. The event in the Park of the Victims of Fascism will also be accompanied by a programme of text and music by pupils from the sports high school.
At the site of the annual event, a memorial created by sculptor Hanns Diettrich in 1952 symbolises the suffering of the victims of the National Socialist regime.
Auschwitz is synonymous with the mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis, an expression of racial madness and at the same time a turning point in German history. 27 January 2016 marks the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. More than one million people were murdered there by January 1945, most of them Jews. Sinti and Roma, the sick and people with disabilities, homosexuals, political dissidents and men and women of the resistance also perished there. The anniversary of the liberation of the camp became an official German day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in 1996 on the initiative of the then Federal President Roman Herzog. It was a clear appeal that Roman Herzog made to the Germans in 1996: "Remembrance must not end; it must also remind future generations to be vigilant." In 2005, the United Nations declared 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Commemorative event at the Jewish Community Centre
The Jewish Community of Chemnitz, the German-Israeli Society Chemnitz and the Evangelical Forum are hosting a joint commemorative event on Wednesday, 27 January at 6 pm at the Jewish Community Centre Chemnitz, Stollberger Straße 28: "A paradise in the midst of hell" - the life and work of the pianist of Theresienstadt, Alice Herz-Sommer. Admission to the event is free.