It was Willy Brandt who acquired the first symbolic building block from the stand set up by the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP) during the Evangelical Church Congress in West Berlin in 1977. It was for a project that was close to many people’s hearts in both East and West Germany: building an International Youth Meeting Centre (IYMC) in Auschwitz, the place that stands like no other for the genocide committed against the Jewish families of Europe and the murderous threat to the Polish people carried out by the Nazis.
Willy Brandt definitely perceived this project, which was propagated for many tough years alongside innumerable setbacks and disillusionments, within the context of his spontaneous kneeling at the monument to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1970. And he hoped that this plan would be realized, because he had trust and confidence in the young people who would breathe life into his ‘Eastern Policy’ and make it part of the future. Many of the people involved in Action Reconciliation Service for Peace recognised that building such a youth centre, especially in Auschwitz, seemed an almost foolhardy thing for Germans to undertake: the wounds created by the Nazi crimes were too deep, the memories too recent, and the many victims throughout the world still so terribly traumatised. The many fruitless visits to government offices in Warsaw also made it very clear that the residue of the Cold War between East and West was in no way beneficial to the ARSP proposal.
In the end it was the concentration camp survivors who gave their support to the design by an architect from Isny in January 1986 and legitimised the project: the moral support and authority of the former Auschwitz prisoners overrode everyday political life and inspired everyone involved. This made it immediately possible to complete a first construction phase together with the help of a South German prefab building company, also in 1986. And naturally, the ceremonious opening took place on 7 December, the day that Willy Brandt had signed the Treaty of Warsaw in 1970.
Since then young people from around the entire globe have visited the meeting centre and taken part in seminars and projects. And to this day the interest demonstrated by young people visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial remains impressive: 60 per cent of the two million visitors who came to the former concentration and extermination camp in 2016 were young people under 26 years of age. The International Youth Meeting Center offers them the opportunity to express and reflect on their impressions of the place.
The questions that the young people ask are also directed towards the present and the future. Since the impressions gained in Auschwitz come across with such intensity, they add an intensity and urgency to the young people’s thoughts about their own lives and the political world in which they live and wish to live in the future.
During the anniversary event in Oswiecim guests from Poland and Germany expressed their gratitude for the educational, cultural and political creativity of the IYMC team and their contributions towards one of the most highly visible constants in the German-Polish dialogue.
Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee and co-founder of the IYMC, stressed in Oswiecim:
"Even now, after thirty years, there has been no closure, nothing has been forgotten or relegated to the past. Looking at history is important in order to understand the nature of the threats posed by right-wing hatred and intolerance to democracy today. In the Youth Meeting Center in Oswiecim the young people also learn how important it is to protect democracy and to respect our fellow human beings."
