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

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Topf & Sons in Erfurt offers an example

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of how completely ordinary people took part in

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perfecting the mass murder system within the framework of their commercial activities or as engineers.

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So it wasn’t just the Nazis, we can’t just blame it all on Hitler;

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 it was part of society.

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 They didn’t even make a lot of money on it,

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but they wanted to make that profit all the same.

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Their biggest incentive, however, was to achieve perfection,

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 to perform the art of engineering,

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 and that shows how perverse it all was.

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 And for me, and I hope for others as well, it raises a question I have to ask myself:

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How would I deal with a situation like that today, in the present?

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Would I do business with anyone, or would I think about whether it’s really morally and ethically sound?

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For Erfurt, it was an extremely important decision –

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not only on the part of the city, but also on the part of the citizens –

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 to uncover this place of remembrance,

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to extract its history from it,

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also the unpleasant aspects, which were hushed up during the period of the German Democratic Republic.

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And not just that, but also to have a place of encounter here where young people,

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but also other groups, can come and work with the issues this place raises.

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I think it was a very self-confident, well-considered stance the city adopted –

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 not simply to bury their heads in the sand and think:

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 “Better just smooth over the top and not talk about it; then we’ll be nice and clean and untainted.”

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But instead to shed light on precisely this aspect of the history and direct attention to it.

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 I believe that not only helps the public,

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but that it was also a decisive step for Erfurt

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that met with a positive echo from all over the world.