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Why is the Topf & Sons – Builders of the Auschwitz Ovens – Place of Remembrance important to you?

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This place is one of the genuine historical places in Thuringia,

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in the Federal Republic of Germany.

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When we talk about the crimes of the Nazi period,

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we also have to talk about everyday life in the Nazi period.

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 And here the two come together.

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Right here where I’m standing,

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I have a view of Buchenwald.

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That means that the oven builders always had their products within sight,

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and they provided accurate engineering

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for how best to turn human beings into smoke.

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They knew exactly who they were doing it for,

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where they were doing it,

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where these ovens were being installed.

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That’s why we have to talk about everyday life.

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And when we talk about everyday life,

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we realize the true dimensions of the Nazi era

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and the Nazi crimes as everyday crimes

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and as a break in our culture.

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That’s why Topf & Sons is so important as a place.

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And it’s good that young people occupied this place several years ago,

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because it was supposed to be torn down.

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A piece of our history would have disappeared,

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and nothing but another supermarket would have come in its stead.

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But what evolved was a Place of Remembrance,

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a place we can make reference to,

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a place we can work with,

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but also a place with which we can pass the memory on to the coming generations.

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Because sooner or later, all that will be left are the commemorative sites.

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The people who witnessed the events first-hand

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and can say “this is how it was” will be gone.

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So the places themselves will have to speak.

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For the people who suffered through it all, survived,

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and warn us not to forget them.

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The “never again” has to be established and re-established over and over again,

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and this place is a foundation for the “never again”.

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The place itself if full of remembrance work,

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and that means that the exhibition has to be overseen by scholars,

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and its position has to be newly staked out again and again.

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It also has to be presented in such a way

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 that makes young people curious.

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Visual habits change; listening habits change.

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The facts remain the same, but how we present them is of decisive importance.

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And I very much look forward to the day

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when there will be another travelling exhibition.

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The content of the present exhibition started as a travelling exhibition.

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Here it permeates the original place of remembrance.

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 And now we want this place to make itself heard

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and felt all over the world once again.

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That’s why it’s so important to continue the scholarship

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and museum education work at this place.