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

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I personally am relatively certain

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that I wouldn’t have worked at the actual place of horror.

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 I don’t think I would have stood in front of an oven or driven the people in there.

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Does that mean everything is OK?

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No, because I’m not sure

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I would have given up my job at a company like Topf & Sons

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 if I had found out that I was aiding and abetting the horror.

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Would I really have left my job,

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 maybe no longer been able to feed my family, if I had known that?

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That’s why a place of remembrance like Topf & Sons

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is all the more of a challenge for me.

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Because completely ordinary people worked here,

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the devoted family man, the church councilmember, the mother.

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And they participated anyway.

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Can I be sure that I wouldn’t have done that?

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That’s a question each of us has to try to answer.

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How did the ordinary engineer

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who otherwise took good care of his family become an accomplice?

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To ensure that that never happens again,

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we each have to answer that question for ourselves.

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 We have to resist before it gets to the point

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where it’s too dangerous to speak up and say:

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 I refuse to be involved.

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We have to take action against hatred and racism

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before it’s too late – and that means now.

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Now, when it’s just beginning.

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 And that’s why I think the Topf & Sons Place of Remembrance

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is just as important as the commemorative sites

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where the actual horror took place.