{"id":483,"date":"2020-09-04T10:10:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T08:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/?page_id=483"},"modified":"2020-10-03T08:43:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T06:43:58","slug":"2-niemals-vergessen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/jewish-perspectives-on-the-crises-of-an-idea\/2-niemals-vergessen\/","title":{"rendered":"“Never Forget!”"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"

Installation “never Forget”. Photo: Dietmar Walser<\/p><\/div>\r\n

The imperative \u201cNever Forget!\u201d is a warning that endeavors to keep the memory of the National Socialist regime\u2019s crimes and the Shoah alive. Indeed, as early as in 1946, Communist Vienna city councilor for cultural affairs Viktor Matejka mounted a large exhibition with that title at the Vienna K\u00fcnstlerhaus. It was organized by the \u201cAustrian federal association of former politically persecuted anti-fascists,\u201d the umbrella organization of Austrian victims of National Socialism that existed until 1948, which had been joined by the \u201cAustrian federal association of individuals persecuted for reasons of origin.\u201d Yet, it was only at the last moment that Heinrich Sussmann (1904\u20131986), a Jewish Auschwitz survivor, was commissioned with designing a poster and exhibition room VI, \u201cPersecution of the Jews.\u201d It was not, however, Sussmann\u2019s poster, which addressed the suffering in the concentration camps, but rather Victor Slama\u2019s resistance fighter forcefully destroying the swastika that became the main advertisement vehicle. Even beyond that, exhibition preparations proved to be conflict-ridden. The Austrian People\u2019s Party was unwilling to see the events immediately preceding the National Socialist period addressed, that is, the authoritarian corporate state, which had started with Austrians shooting at Austrians; and both large parties wished to have the Austrian victim theory underscored. No party was interested in dealing with the active participation of Austrians in the pogrom and murder of the Jews.<\/p>\r\n

^ Sussmann family tomb at the Vienna Central Cemetery, Vienna 2020, \u00a9 Oskar Prasser<\/em><\/p>\r\n

< Heinrich Sussmann, poster for the exhibition \u201cNever Forget,\u201d Vienna 1946, \u00a9 Austrian National Library-Picture Archive
<\/em><\/p>\r\n

>\u00a0<\/span>Anti-Semitic \u201cgame\u201d anonymously sent by mail to Simon Wiesenthal, n. d., \u00a9 Archive of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)<\/em><\/div>\r\n

v<\/span>\u00a0Simon Wiesenthal, Vienna 1988, \u00a9 Archive of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI)<\/em>

Throughout his entire life, Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal (1908\u20132005) implored to never forget that the Shoah had been a consequence of the dismantling of democracy and human rights. Through the \u201cDocumentation Center of the Association of Jews Persecuted by the Nazi Regime,\u201d which he had founded, he collected and documented Nazi crimes and searched for escaped perpetrators around the world. Politically, Wiesenthal was close to the \u00d6VP (Austrian People\u2019s Party). His protest against former Nazis being ministers in the FP\u00d6-supported (Freedom Party of Austria) minority government of the SP\u00d6 (then: Socialist Party of Austria) under Bruno Kreisky\u2014who in turn had found himself berated as \u201cSaujud<\/em>\u201d (sow of a Jew) by an \u00d6VP member of parliament in 1966\u2014prompted the Federal Chancelor to maliciously insinuate that Wiesenthal had been a Nazi collaborator. Now, two Austrians of Jewish descent were attacking each other in public, and the republic watched. Despite all the educational efforts and all the affirmations of their anti-fascist convictions automatically uttered by politicians, Wiesenthal was repeatedly exposed to rude anti-Semitism. When in 1990 an FP\u00d6 mayoral candidate let it be known in an interview: \u201cI\u2019ve said to Simon Wiesenthal: We are already building ovens again, but nor for you, Mr. Wiesenthal \u2014you have plenty of space in J\u00f6rgl\u2019s pipe,\u201d it only was the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The imperative \u201cNever Forget!\u201d is a warning that endeavors to keep the memory of the National Socialist regime\u2019s crimes and the Shoah alive. Indeed, as early as in 1946, Communist Vienna city councilor for cultural affairs Viktor Matejka mounted a large exhibition with that title at the Vienna K\u00fcnstlerhaus. It was organized by the \u201cAustrian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":624,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"categories":[50,44,78,47,63,86,53,73],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/483"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":750,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/483\/revisions\/750"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}