We are an international group called “Third Generation Buchenwald”, born in the year 2005, whose aim is to collectively research and learn from the stories of the Buchenwald concentration camp – thus building a vivid international platform debating the Nazi past and its current meanings, in Buchenwald, in Germany and in Europe.
www.ThirdGenerationBuchenwald.wordpress.com
Buchenwald was among the first and largest Nazi concentration camps. Political opponents from communist and leftist groups, Roma, Jews, Poles, homosexuals, religious minorities, war prisoners were all inmates or executed there, brought from all over Europe and beyond. An international resistance movement developed inside the camp, showing that solidarity can endure beyond social borders even in the face of the most dehumanizing conditions. After the liberation, on the 19th of April 1945, all the camp survivors took an oath – the much discussed “Buchenwald Oath” – to fight fascism and all forms of dehumanization in the world, for a better future.
As Buchenwald has always been a controversial and heterogeneous place, where the past, present and future meet, we explicitly welcome controversy and different perspectives. We believe that memory can only stay alive if there is discussion, questioning and curiosity instead of a fixation of meaning. We want to learn about Buchenwald, we want to learn from Buchenwald for today, and we want to learn from each other.
Our next project is entitled “Exploring the past and shaping the future”. It will try to understand a bit of the many stories, social mechanisms, memories and institutions interconnected at Buchenwald, providing materials and inspiration for further research, art works, interventions. Through the project, we want to develop a collective and participative multimedia multidisciplinary exhibition that travels around the world, in countries where former camp inmates and survivors live/ lived: Germany, France, Romania, Spain, Poland, Russia etc.
We are now collecting ideas and looking for people interested to become part of this future project – as partners in the learning process, as participants, advisors, publics.
Reason why we invite everyone interested to a presentation meeting and discussion – in English – on the 22nd of January, at 19,00, at “Claca” Centre.
Centrul Claca 