2024

In the run-up to the 2024 and 2025 commemorations, which will mark the 80th anniversaries of the start of the liberation of Europe by the Allied Forces and the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps respectively, the International Committee of Dachau extends its best wishes for peace and solidarity in the new year 2024, and invites you to remain vigilant, united and determined in the face of the many challenges facing our societies in the European Union and throughout the world.

Dominique Boueilh

President of the Comité International de Dachau

Agenda

Events on the grounds of the concentration camp

Sunday, 28 January 2024, 11 a.m. / Countering anti-Semitism - service to mark the 20th Remembrance Day in German football / Protestant Church of Reconciliation at the concentration camp memorial site

The "Remembrance Day in German Football Initiative" was launched 20 years ago by the Church of Reconciliation. In close cooperation with fan initiatives, the DFB and the DFL, activities are planned around the match days before and after 27 January in the stadiums of the two Bundesliga leagues. Events, talks and exhibitions will be organised in many cities around the match days.

This year's Remembrance Day and the church service organised by Deacon Frank Schleicher will focus on anti-Semitism and the question of how we can counter it.

Further information can be found at www.niewieder.info

Location: Evangelical Church of Reconciliation at the Concentration Camp Memorial, Alte Römerstr. 87, 85221 Dachau.

On Sunday, 4 February 2024, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial will be showing the theatre production "The Trial of Hans Litten" at 7.00 pm

On Sunday, 4 February 2024, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial will be showing the theatre production "The Trial of Hans Litten" at 7 p.m. to mark the 86th anniversary of his death. The play is dedicated to the short life of lawyer Hans Litten, who dedicated himself to the fight against National Socialism and died in Dachau concentration camp on 4 February 1938. Admission is free, registration at www.eventbrite.de  is requested.

further information in German at the kz-gedenkstaette.

Thursday, 8 February 2024, 7 p.m. / National Socialism in film - making cinema films accessible as historical sources / Protestant Church of Reconciliation at the concentration camp memorial site

In 2004, the film "Downfall" (directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel) sparked a controversial debate. While Bruno Ganz's acting performance as Adolf Hitler was praised, some commentators criticised the fact that Hitler was portrayed far too humanly, as a caring father figure. The debate shows that the critics were less concerned with the film and its cinematography than with how National Socialism was portrayed in popular culture in the 21st century. Historical films are often judged by their authenticity. In doing so, it is forgotten that they usually reflect the era in which they were produced much better than the actual historical event that they retell. The lecture would therefore like to use selected films to show how National Socialism has been portrayed since the 1940s and what conclusions we can draw from this for the public remembrance of National Socialism.

In order to explain and illustrate the changing visual confrontation with National Socialism, films from Europe, the USA and the Soviet Union will be analysed and embedded in their social and political contexts. The aim is to open up cinema films as a historical source and to classify their significance in the culture of remembrance and coming to terms with the Nazi crimes.

Speaker: Dr Tobias Hof, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary History at the Department of History at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich
In cooperation with: Evangelical Church of Reconciliation and Dachau Forum

Location: Evangelical Church of Reconciliation at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial (access in the evening only via Karmel Heilig Blut, Alte Römerstraße 91, 85221 Dachau)

Tuesday, 20 February 2024 | 19.00 hrs/Catalogue presentation "Zeitspuren. The Allach Subcamp Complex"

In 2016 and 2017, archaeological excavations by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments unearthed over 1000 objects from the site of the Allach subcamp complex. This is where concentration camp prisoners performed forced labour at BMW in the manufacture of aircraft engines and in the construction of a bunker for production. The recently published catalogue presents the exhibition "Traces of Time. The Allach Subcamp Complex", which was on display at the concentration camp memorial from 2020 to 2022. The catalogue is available in German and English. The volume also contains in-depth essays by those involved in the interdisciplinary exhibition project. Contemporary witnesses of the concentration camp have their say in many places. The exhibition and the accompanying volume are dedicated to them and the many victims of the Allach satellite camp complex.
Visitor centre of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. Pater-Roth-Str. 2a, 85221 Dachau

Admission is free, please register at www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de. The venue is barrier-free. The event is not suitable for persons under the age of 13.

Thursday, 29 February 2024, 7 pm / Hitler's most extraordinary neighbour - book presentation with Ulrich Chaussy / Evangelical Church of Reconciliation at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

While researching the village of Obersalzberg, Hitler's place of residence and second seat of government near Berchtesgaden, Ulrich Chaussy comes across Arthur Eichengrün (1867 -1949). Who was this forgotten Jewish neighbour of Hitler? The chemist was a researcher, inventor and entrepreneur all in one. He synthesised cocaine and we have him to thank for aspirin. He invented the incombustible cinema film and revolutionised the construction of fabric-covered aeroplanes and zeppelins. From 1933 onwards, all his achievements counted for nothing. He lost all his possessions. Suddenly the assimilated patriot was just one thing: a Jew, deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Ulrich Chaussy, the journalist and non-fiction author known for his meticulous research into the right-wing terrorist Oktoberfest attack, writes Arthur Eichengrün back into the collective memory with his new book. "Arthur Eichengrün - Der Mann, der alles erfinden konnte, nur nicht sich selbst" will be published by Herder in autumn 2023.

Organiser: Evangelical Church of Reconciliation at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

location: Evangelical Church of Reconciliation at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial (access in the evening only via Karmel Heilig Blut, Alte Römerstraße 91, 85221 Dachau)

On the occasion of May 9 - Victory Day, earlier this year, and after five years of preparations and extensive research, a monument was unveiled with the names of the Jews of Novi Sad who died in the resistance against fascism in 1941-1945. It is located in the courtyard of the Novi Sad synagogue as a witness that members of the Novi Sad Jewish community were participants in the resistance.

Images can be found here

The ARD news made the following report on the 30 April commemoration.

Image: KZGedenkstätte Dachau Guido Hassel und Stiftung Bayerische Gedenkstätten

Dominique Boueilh

President of the Comité International de Dachau

It is with great honor that I address you all as the new President of the Cid. For many years I have been involved in the International Dachau Committee and in the annual commemorations of the liberation of the camp. However, I do not hide the fact that I am overwhelmed by great emotion at this particular moment.

Allow me to share an intimate thought about my father, Didier Boueilh.
Eighteen years old, the exact age of his great-grandson Enzo here present, he arrived at the Dachau camp on July 5, 1944, aboard the sinister convoy 7909, known as the "Train of Death", and which he survived by a miracle. He was liberated at dawn on April 29, 1945 by the American soldiers, to whom he was to dedicate his life-long gratitude.

For the end of the suffering of thousands of prisoners, for this newfound freedom, we must all be honored today by the presence among us of liberators, torn from their youth to liberate from the Nazi invader a Europe that was far from them.

Leitenberg

 Image CID Cristina Cristobal

- 17.30

Laying of the wreath at the Leitenberg.

29-4-2023

Am Appelplatz

- 17.00

Ceremony at the foot of the flame monument
- Wreath laying by the President of the CID and the families.

Opening Exhibition "Prelude to Terror"

90 years ago, on March 22, 1933, the Nazi regime brought the first prisoners to the newly established concentration camp in Dachau, less than two months after the National Socialists came to power.

Dachau March 22, 2023

"we observe the persistence or return of autocracies, which are careful not to be assimilated to dictatorships. They take care to silence their opponents, they manipulate opinion, they constantly revisit history and cultivate the clash of cultures,"

Speech by Dominique BoueilhPresident of the International Dachau Committee