Ravensbrück Memorial Museum
We protest against the suppression of a critical historical culture in Russia
14. January 2022
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation decided that the internationally highly respected human rights organisation "Memorial International" should be dissolved. The lawyers have applied for a stay of this decision. Ahead of the upcoming trial, the organisation is now being subjected to further repression by the judiciary. Memorial chairman Jan Raczynski has been summoned by the prosecutor's office, which has started an investigation for "rehabilitation of Nazism" on the initiative of the organisation "Veterans of Russia". This is a criminal offence in Russia, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The formal background to the staging: in Memorial's victim databases, there are individuals who were victims of Stalinist repression but later collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. Some men convicted of alleged OUN/UPA membership are also mentioned. The vast majority have been rehabilitated.
The fact that four of the 19 men named in the list of the veterans' organisation are simultaneously mentioned on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defence "Remembrance of the People" (Pamjat' Naroda) under the heading "Heroes of the War" shows that this is in no way a serious examination of possibly ambivalent biographies or a critical reappraisal of history in Russia, but rather a targeted political denunciation.
We protest against this persecution and declare our solidarity with Memorial. We have known Memorial for years as an important and reliable partner in international research and educational projects, especially in the Federal Republic. The accusation of relativising National Socialism has no factual basis. The campaign against Memorial, whose roots go back to the glasnost and perestroika phase of the late Soviet Union, hits one of the most important civil society organisations in Russia, which stands there like no other for a critical approach to the history of crimes in the 20th century. For decades, Memorial International has been dedicated to coming to terms with Stalinism and National Socialist crimes and actively campaigns for democracy and human rights. The organisation has a unique collection of objects and memoirs from the GULag and has also rendered outstanding services to researching the history of Soviet forced labourers and their social recognition after 1990. She has just been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oranienburg, 14 February 2022
Dr Axel Drecoll, Brandenburg Memorials Foundation
Prof. Dr. Detlef Garbe, Hamburg Memorials and Learning Places Foundation
Dr. Andrea Genest, Ravensbrück Memorial and Remembrance Centre
Dr Elke Gryglewski, Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation
Dr Gabriele Hammermann, Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Dr Enrico Heitzer, Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum
Dr Julia Landau, Buchenwald Memorial Site
Dr Thomas Lutz, Memorial Department, Topography of Terror Foundation.
Uwe Neumärker, Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Dr. Sylvia de Pasquale, Brandenburg an der Havel Memorials
Dr. Ines Reich, Leistikowstraße Memorial and Meeting Place Potsdam
Prof. Dr. Jörg Skriebeleit, Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial Site
PD Dr Karsten Uhl, Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Prof. Dr Jens-Christian Wagner, Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation
Prof. Dr Michael Wildt, Humboldt University Berlin
Dr Oliver von Wrochem, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Centre
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