The Embassy of Poland and the Centro Sefarad-Israel present the lecture The Winding Paths of Memory, by Professor Jan Rydel, which will take place on 14 February at 6 p.m. at the Centro Sefarad-Israel (c/ Mayor, 69).
The event will deal with the problem of the commemoration of the Gusen and Mauthausen concentration camps: past and present. These two former German Nazi concentration camps are only four kilometres apart, but the difference in knowledge and memory of them is enormous. Mauthausen has been regaining an important place on the map of European commemorations of Nazi crimes; however, hardly anyone has heard of Gusen, even though it claimed more victims and was considered harsher by the prisoners because of the tragic living conditions and the cruelty of the SS guards. The erasure of Gusen from memory began in the 1940s and led to the destruction and almost total elimination of traces of the camp, where today a housing estate of single-family houses stands.
Professor and researcher Jan Rydel, Polish representative to the Polish-German Science Foundation, wants to recall the history of KL Gusen and the circumstances of its (non-)commemoration, as well as to describe the current state of the debate on the future of the site. To attend the conference, please register via this link.
