78th Anniversary of the liberation of prisoners from the Neuengamme concentration camp 2023
Sponsored by the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future
To mark the anniversary of the liberation, various events will be offered in May 2023. We look forward to your participation!
At the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial we are planning the following events, among others.
You can already find the complete programme in our events calendar.
May 2, 2023
A Space to Remember, Connect and Support
2 p.m. – 5 p.m. Open Printing Workshop for Relatives
5 p.m. – 6 p.m. Public Poster Presentation
At the Space to Remember, relatives create individual posters to pay tribute to former prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp from all over the world. Using the printing technique that was employed in the resistance against National Socialism, relatives can print their poster motifs in the printing workshop at the Space to Remember. Following the open workshop, relatives will tell their family stories, present their posters and put them up in memory of their family members. The speakers will be:
- Riet Schuit, daughter of a Dutch prisoner (together with Karin van Steeg): Poster for her father Hendrikus Schipper
- Mykola Titov, nephew of a Ukrainian prisoner, and Janina Martynova, granddaughter of a Ukrainian prisoner: Posters for Ivan Ilych Titov and Nikolay Averyanovich Avdeenko
Venue: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Plattenhaus (near the bus stop “KZ-Gedenkstätte – Mahnmal”).
Public event, no registration required.
Further information: https://ort-der-verbundenheit.org/
In cooperation with the AG Ort der Verbundenheit, the Freundeskreis der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neuengamme (AGN) and the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme (AIN)
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May 3, 2023, 3.30 p.m.
Commemorative Ceremony to Mark the 78th Anniversary of the End of the War and the Liberation of Concentration Camps
International ceremony with survivors and the relatives of former prisoners of the Neuengamme concentration camp from all over the world. The event will start with a commemorative ceremony in the former workshops of the Walther factory followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the former detention bunker (both are located near the bus stop “KZ-Gedenkstätte – Ausstellung”)
Program:
- Opening words: Prof. Dr. Oliver von Wrochem, Director of the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centers
- Welcome: Dr. Peter Tschentscher, Mayor of Hamburg
- Speech: Barbara Piotrowska, daughter of a former Neuengamme prisoner and a survivor of the Ravensbrück concentration camp
- Speech: Balbina Rebollar, President of the Spanish Amical de Neuengamme
- Welcome: Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture and the Media
- Musical accompaniment: Förderverein Jugend musiziert, Samantha Wright
Venue: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, former Walther factory workshops (near the bus stop “KZ-Gedenkstätte – Ausstellung”)
Public event, no registration required.
In cooperation with the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme (AIN)
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May 4, 2023, 2 p.m.
Inauguration of the Memorial for Spanish Resistance Fighters and Members of the International Brigades
At the initiative of the Spanish Amical de Neuengamme, a memorial, designed by Serge Castillo, a sculptor and a relative of a former prisoner, will be erected in the memorial grove in honor of “all the victims of the Spanish Civil War, ‘Reds’ and members of the International Brigades who heroically endured Nazi barbarism.” The memorial consists of a bronze relief and a plaque with the dedication placed on a large stele built out of bricks.
- Opening words: Prof. Dr. Oliver von Wrochem, Director of the Foundation of Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centers
- Welcome: Javier Dago Elorza, Consul General of Spain in Hamburg
- Speech: Rita Camblor Rodríguez, Minister of State of the Principality of Asturias
- Welcome: Jean-Michel Gaussot, Vice president of the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme
- Welcome: Barbara Brix, Member of the board of the Freundeskreis der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
- Speech: Balbina Rebollar, President of the Spanish Amical de Neuengamme
- Musical accompaniment: Anna Senda-Pimentel (Soprano), Pablo Villafuerte (Guitar)
The memorial is jointly funded by the Spanish Secretaría de Estado de Memoria Democrática, the Spanish Embassy in Germany, the Freundeskreis der KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Northern Germany and the members of the Spanish Amical de Neuengamme.
Venue: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Memorial grove (near the bus stop “KZ-Gedenkstätte – Mahnmal”)
Public event, no registration required.
In cooperation with the Amical de Neuengamme from Spain and the Amicale Internationale KZ Neuengamme (AIN)
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May 4, 2023, 7 p.m.
Fighting Against Oblivion. Two Holocaust Survivors Remember and Look Ahead
Livia Fränkel and Elisabeth Masur-Kischinowski from Stockholm share a similar fate. Both women were deported as teenagers with their Jewish families from Hungary and Czechoslovakia, respectively, and survived various ghettos, the Auschwitz extermination camp, and women’s satellite camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg before being liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Their parents did not survive. We will talk to both of them about the time of their persecution, their life after surviving the Holocaust, the passing on of memories in their families and their commitment against forgetting until today. See also: Fighting against oblivion
The event will be held in English only.
Please register with hamburg@fes.de.
Venue: Freie Akademie der Künste, Klosterwall 23, 20095 Hamburg
In cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Hamburg.
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May 5, 2023, 2 p.m.
Conversation Café with Survivors of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp and Its Satellite Camps
Five survivors – Dita Kraus, Livia Fränkel, Natan Grossmann, Elisabeth Masur-Kishinowski and Barbara Piotrowska – will travel to Hamburg from different countries to commemorate their liberation 78 years ago with their families. What have their lives been like since the liberation? What is their message to younger generations? At the conversation café, you can personally ask them these and many other questions. Young people from Hamburg prepared the project and will moderate the conversations.
Venue: Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Center for Historical Studies (near the bus stop “KZ-Gedenkstätte Ausstellung”)
For further information and to register (required!) please contact Ulrike Jensen (E-Mail: ulrike.jensen@gedenkstaetten.hamburg.de, Tel.: +49 (0)40) 428 131 519).