As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches on 27 January, the day which has been observed every year since 2005 in memory of the victims, and the day of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Auschwitz survivors are sending out a warning.
They are warning against the increasing ritualization and trivialisation of remembrance in view of the political developments in many European countries. The survivors are warning that present-day societies are being challenged from the extreme right in massive new ways, and this means that not only the political players are being compelled to reassess their current political experiences and at the same time to consider historical experiences and the memories of the survivors. In this year especially, the survivors see the day of remembrance not only as day to recall the crimes of Nazi Germany, the murderous consequences of anti-Semitism and the loss of their families.
It is also a day that reaches out through time and, like a thorn, penetrates the side of our present-day world. It sheds a glaring light on the fact that, meanwhile, anti-Semitism, hatred and intolerance have long since been taking on a similar and threatening shape in everyday life, especially that of young people.
In Berlin Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said:
"It is high time that we not only remember the past, but also that we are mindful of the present in this context. As their lives draw to a close, the survivors feel they are being cheated out of their memories in many ways, and that above all their experiences are being denied. For decades they have spoken in many countries as witnesses of the time, in efforts to convince especially young people to be committed democrats, and to warn them about the dangers of misanthropy, anti-Semitism, intolerance and nationalist arrogance. It is for this reason in particular that the survivors have always seen the project and the idea of Europe as an important response to their own deadly experiences and the bloody history of Europe. What is happening today in the societies of Germany and other European countries, the revival of malicious, narrow-minded nationalistic thoughts, the aggressiveness towards refugees, and the ever-recurring, toxic clichés of anti-Semitism, clearly illustrates the need to take a look in the mirror on this Remembrance Day: Where do we stand today? Where are we heading?
It has long since become blatantly clear that so-called right-wing populism is increasingly trying to destabilise parliaments, media and democratic institutions from both the inside and the outside and to incite contempt for them among citizens in many European countries.
Every single day, people representing these forces are levelling abusive and cynical attacks on the common good and the dignity of society and inciting aggression, exclusion and blind defiance amongst the people. This situation in the year 2018 is making Auschwitz survivors feel both bitter and threatened.
For this reason their restless gaze not only looks back in sorrow at their own history, but above all at the present and towards the future. The survivors are grateful that people are commemorating their history and their murdered Jewish families at so many remembrance ceremonies marking the liberation of Auschwitz. But they are combining this expression of gratitude with the urgent appeal: Cast your gaze into your present and into your future as well. Democracy needs you, especially now."
