On January 27, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, the crimes of the Nazi regime are remembered in many places and in many ways. In the course of this, the declaration can be heard again and again that something comparable should "never happen again". But the danger is: if commemoration becomes an empty ritual that absolves everyone else of the responsibility to deal with the past on the following 364 days, we are entering dangerous grounds.
The reality away from commemorative days like January 27 looks grim: Antisemitic slurs and physical attacks on Jews happen almost daily. Holocaust denial may be punishable in most European countries - but law enforcement leaves much to be desired, especially in the digital realm. This is not what we can mean when we say "Never again."
Remembering the victims of National Socialism is at the heart of the Alfred Landecker Foundation's work. We believe that a responsibility for the present and the future derives from this - namely, to make us aware of the possibilities we have as individuals to prevent the first steps that can bring democracies down.
So what happens in the remaining 364 days? What consequences are we willing to draw from history? And how does the memory of the crimes of the Nazi regime influence our lives in the here and now?
With the themed week #ReviveRemembrance, we reflect on the many approaches to remembering and their significance in the present with project partners from the Alfred Landecker community. As a foundation that seeks new ways to make the Nazi past relevant in the here and now and is committed to fighting antisemitism and group-based hatred in the present, we want to use the week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day to pause and reflect: How do we remember - and why?
- Silke Mülherr, Co-CEO of the Alfred Landecker Foundation: What do we actually mean when we say "Never again"?
- Alfred Landecker Lecturer Mykola Makhortykh on connecting artificial intelligence with Holocaust memory.
- The results of the MEMO series of studies on the memory of the Holocaust, with an introduction by our program director Steffen Jost.
- Landecker Lecturer Agata Pietrasik on connecting art history with Holocaust remembrance.
- Combating antisemitism and Holocaust denial on platforms: The lawsuit filed by HateAid and the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) against Twitter.
- An interview with political scientist Jakob Baier on antisemitism in the German cultural landscape.
- Dr. Christoph Kreutzmüller and Johanna Kühne from the Actives Museum on the history of so-called "Judenhäuser" and "Judenwohnungen" in Berlin
- Remembrance through Art: Artist Emmanuel Bornstein talks about his grandmother and Holocaust survivor Carmen Siedlecki Bornstein
- Remembrance from a Jewish perspective: Rebecca Blady, Elmira Tarivierdiieva & Rebecca Rogowski from Hillel Germany describe what remembrance means to them
- Our program director, Steffen Jost on Holocaust remembrance and why it must remain important and visible in the present day.