Greg Stanton, director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation, warned about the disrespectful behavior of young people at Holocaust memorials. He referred to incidents where young people are taking photos and making Nazi gestures at Holocaust memorial sites. Stanton described these behaviors as "prizes for posting on social media" that break the ultimate taboo.
Increase in Disrespectful Behavior
Stanton stated that similar incidents have increasingly occurred in recent years, including the cutting down of memorial trees for victims of concentration camps. He deemed such incidents as extremely intolerable and added that these behaviors mean killing the victims again.
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Stanton is part of the curation team for the exhibition "Never Again! Against the Forgetting of Nazi Regime Crimes" at the Federal Art and Exhibition Hall in Bonn. He emphasized that the remembrance of the Holocaust is under pressure and attacks on this subject are intensifying every day.
Concerns About the Future of Holocaust Remembrance
Critiques of Holocaust remembrance have been raised as "cult of guilt" and "national masochism." With the rise of right-wing populism and historical revisionism, Stanton is concerned about the remembrance of victims killed by the Nazi regime and also about the future of democracy. He believes that soon there will be no more Holocaust survivors to tell the true story of what happened.
This exhibition directly addresses these concerns and includes numerous works of art and historical objects. Stanton hopes that even some individuals who do not believe in the importance of confronting Nazi crimes will visit this exhibition. He notes that memorial sites also attract visitors who do not necessarily believe in the significance of this part of history.
Personal Experiences and Collective Remembrance
Ewa Umlauf, who has experienced severe discrimination and massacre herself, is now 83 years old and is one of the supporters of this exhibition. At the age of two, she was transferred from the Novaky labor camp in Slovakia to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She narrowly escaped from the gas chamber, and her family lost many members in this camp.
Ewa Umlauf, now a well-known writer and speaker, spoke about the Holocaust in Auschwitz in 2011. She wrote a book depicting her experiences, and since its publication, not a day has gone by without someone asking her to tell her story.
Ewa expresses regret about the behavior of young people at former camps and the increasing ignorance about the Holocaust. She believes that this trend reflects serious challenges in remembrance and understanding history and emphasizes the importance of holding effective educational programs.
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