A few weeks ago, as you probably know, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, the Bavarian Memorial Foundation and the Comité International de Dachau (CID) had to take the hard decision to cancel all the commemorative events connected with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau Concentration Camp. This cancellation also relates to the central commemorative event, which had been planned for Sunday, May 3rd, 2020.
"You are not responsible for what happened.
But that it won't happen again
for that you are. "
Max Mannheimer February 6, 1920 - September 23. 2016
DECLARATION OF MADRID
Meeting in Madrid on 2 November 2019 - on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camps - we, Chairpersons and Secretaries-General of the International Committees of Nazi extermination and concentration camps, salute the work accomplished by the Spanish authorities and the Amical de Mauthausen y Otros Campos for the recognition of the deportation of the Spanish Republicans to the Nazi camps.
Thursday the 19th of September 2019, after a full life, Clement Quentin died in the hospital of Cholet. He passed away only a day after the celebration of his 99th birthday, surrounded by his family.
„"Envy and fear of failure," as Götz Aly put it, "Grudges and greed drove the anti-Semitism of the Germans....... (OB Hartmann)
"No historical cold facts can describe what the single human had to go through, the fear, the survival, the thoughts he had, the dreams and desires, the human side." (Dana Bloch)
" But let's not lose hope because we see a whole generation of our children and grandchildren defending the values we fought for."
On May 5th, 2019, on the occasion of the international ceremonies commemorating the liberation of the Mauthausen Nazi Camp in Austria, the Representatives of the International Committees of the Nazi Extermination and Concentration Camps climbed the 186 stairs of the stairway of death, emblem of the Mauthausen Camp, in order to reaffirm their attachment to the protection of Memorial sites and the public's free access to them.
Today, they would like to launch the following appeal:
“As guardians of the memory of the prisoners of the nazi extermination and concentration camps and the values they defended – often to their deaths –,
We, the representatives of the International Committees of the Nazi Extermination and Concentration Camps,
Profoundly worried by the nationalist, populist, and xenophobic policies enacted by a number of governments of the states of our continent,
Considering that these policies are in fundamental contradiction with the spirit of the different oaths made by the detainees upon their liberation, in particular by those of Mauthausen and Buchenwald,
Evaluating the grave threat that these policies represent for our collective destiny because of their appeals to violence, to hate, and to antidemocratic practices,
