Langenstein, December 2014 Dear Sir or Madam, dear friends, It was with great sorrow that we learned in the past year of the death of the following former prisoners of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp: Moniek Stawski from Germany, Emile Torner, François Laget and Claude Baud from France as well as Jan Wysocki and Eugeniusz Rudzinski from Poland. We also had to say goodbye to Norma Contento, wife of the former Italian prisoner Giulio Contento, and to Christiane Barcikowski, wife of the former French prisoner Marian Barcikowski. Our sincere sympathy and condolences go to all members of their families. Last year‟s events started on 27 January, the nation-wide remembrance day in Germany dedicated to the victims of national-socialism.. This year again, guided tours of the former concentration camp grounds were organized by pupils from the Käthe Kollwitz high school for their younger schoolmates. After a ceremony of silent commemoration at the victims„ graves, we hosted, in cooperation with the Moses-Mendelssohn-Academy of Halberstadt, the screening of the film “The Notebook” by Janos Szasz based on a novel by Ágota Kristóf. This film features the subjects of uprooting, loneliness and cruelty as examples for the impact of war on the civilian population. In cooperation with the Cultural Centre “Reichenstrasse” of Quedlinburg, we participated again in the “Quedlinburg Book Spring” event on 31 March which featured this year a public reading of extracts from Naphtali Brezniak‟s book “The birch trees stand tall”. From 10 April to 14 April, the memorial hosted the 24th edition of the “Days of Encounter”. Since, due to their advanced age, almost no survivor was able to come anymore to this event to witness about his life in captivity, descendants of former inmates, acting as an international group of the second generation, took over again the duty to talk with young people from Germany about their fathers‟ and grand-fathers‟ concentration camp experience and how this was dealt with within their families. The commemoration ceremony on 13 April started with the “Action 2014” based on an idea of the Second Generation Group and featuring the subject of “routes and movements inside the camp”. Schoolchildren and students from the region had prepared a special way to perform this subject, which included studying written testimonies from survivors. presentation, For signposts the scenic were then erected on the former roll-call ground, identifying in various languages the places between which the prisoners had to make their daily movements, such as “barracks”, “roll-call ground”, “kitchen barrack” or “latrines”. On the day when the action was staged, the performers rolled out a white ribbon between the signposts, thus gradually creating a tangled network of ribbons symbolising the pathways and the interrelation of prisoners between themselves. On the ribbons could be read, again in several languages, the thoughts and feelings of the young people which had crossed their minds while they were preparing this performance. After the performance was over, the young people invited the former inmates Georges Petit and Ryszard Kosinski as well as all other guests to join them on a little walk to the graves in which the victims of the camp had been hastily buried. Speeches of commemoration and remembrance were held there by the survivor from Poland Ryszard Kosinski, André Frères from Belgium representing the Second Generation Group and Maik Reichel, director of the regional centre for political education of Saxony-Anhalt. This year again, high-school students from the Leipzig Protestant School Centre gave us a hand and carried out maintenance jobs on the Memorial‟s grounds during the period from 28 May to 6 June. On 11 September, the Memorial hosted the 65th anniversary of its foundation. The deputy director of the Memorial Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, Dr. Sascha Möbius, and the chairwoman of the Support Association, Hanka Rosenkranz, acknowledged in their welcoming speeches the diverse and numerous activities which were undertaken by staff, volunteers, sponsors, friends, supporters and project participants in order to turn the Memorial into a place for encounters, historic education and social self-reflection. Afterwards, the Magdeburg cellist, sound and improvisation artist Matthias Marggraff aka “Prypjat Syndrome” took all guests with him on a absolutely fascinating journey across unfamiliar worlds of sound. The Second Generation Group met from 16 to 19 October for their 17th seminar and discussed with senior foundation and memorial staff as well as with representatives of the Support Association future projects and an idea for the “commemoration action 2015” which will feature the subject of the “death march” and shall be performed for the first time not only by young people from German, but also from other countries. On 4 November, the Memorial held a press conference to inform the public about new educational schemes. One of them carries the name “Geocaching – stations for remembrance”, allowing schoolchildren to explore the outside grounds on their own for different subjects, using navigation devices and tablets provided with software programmes designed by the Magdeburg company Zeitreise-Manufaktur. And inside the Memorial building, newly designed work sheets are available, inviting visitors to take a closer look at different particular subjects. Both activities include a detailed introduction as well as a thorough analysis of the achieved results. The collection “Remember!” published by the Memorial Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt was continued this year with two articles on Langenstein-Zwieberge. Under the title “My requests for 2014“, Georges Petit, a concentration camp survivor from France, reflects on the subject of “remembrance rituals”, and another contribution written by myself gives details on what is planned to redesign the outdoor grounds of the Memorial. In case you are interested in this publication (which is, however, available only in German), please get in touch with the Memorial. Preview The next ”Days of Encounter” will be held from 9 to 13 April 2015. Due to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp, we expect a large number of guests and request, for this reason, all former prisoners and family members to let us know by 10 January 2015 if they will come. For your attendance message, please get in touch with Gesine Daifi (per email: [email protected], per letter: Gedenkstätte Langenstein-Zwieberge, Vor den Zwiebergen 1, 38895 Halberstadt OT Langenstein). Finally, let me wish you, also on behalf of the Memorial‟s staff, all the best for the coming year 2015. We are looking forward to continuing our cooperation with you and extend our sincere greetings to you. Dr Ute Hoffmann Head of the Memorial In commemoration of the victims of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp, another 110 name plates were placed on the edge of the mass graves in 2014. For the manufacture of further name plates, the support association and the memorial request continued donations to the following account of the support association: Name of bank Harzsparkasse Reason for payment Grabplatten IBAN DE 05810 520 000 301 75 1668 BIC Code NOLADE21HRZ Contact: Gedenkstätte für die Opfer des KZ Langenstein-Zwieberge Vor den Zwiebergen 1, D-38895 Halberstadt OT Langenstein Phone/Fax: +49(0)3941/30248 Email: [email protected]