Fotos courtesy of Tower Hamlets Council
taken by Kois Miah
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
dear Leon,
Thank you for inviting me once again to speak on this day,
which marks the worst maleficence in the history of my people,
if not the worst crime against mankind in history.
Only recently our local cinema on Mile End Road,
chose ZONE OF INTEREST as one of the best films of 2024.
It was one of the most important films too, I might add.
“Zone of interest/ Interessensgebiet”” that´s how the Nazis called Auschwitz.
I don´t know, whether you are familiar with the topography of the ground,
but Auschwitz was not just one, but a series of concentration camps.
In the “Stammlager” people were imprisoned and tortured,
in “Buna” and “Monowitz” they had to suffer from forced labour,
and in “Birkenau” more than one million were murdered and burnt.
In my time as school and university chaplain in Cologne,
I have taken various groups of students to Auschwitz
to stay for a week at the Centre of Dialogue and Prayer
which is run jointly by the Polish and German Catholic Church.
There are many visitors to the museum every day – from all over the world.
But only a few stay on the ground for a couple of days – and nights.
The place is different, when everyone has left
and silence comes down upon the barracks.
It´s then, that you hear voices from the past, echoing within yourself.
It is, as if the silence makes way for the muted screams of victims long gone.
Right next to the “Stammlager”, quite literally wall to wall,
was the Villa of Kommandant Rudolf Höß, his wife and their five children.
How could they possibly live a regular family-life at this horrendous place,
we wondered again and again.
And this exactly is the issue, the film ZONE OF INTEREST addresses.
We see a beautiful garden, a swimming-pool, a playground,
me meet the family at a picnic, hear them argue and plan the future.
It´s all very common – unbearably common.
We all know, what is happening behind that idyllic wall at the very same time.
But we never see it and are forced to add images of the cruel reality ourselves.
The film brutally assigns an active part of remembrance to each of us.
And again, the absence, or visual silence if you like,
makes way for personal reflection.
The most disturbing scene for me was,
when Rudolf Höß ordered his SS Men
to be more careful with some rosebushes,
whenever they would pass them.
How can a man be troubled by some broken branches of a rosebush,
and carry on breaking und murdering human beings at the same time?
How does that even go together?
We might want to call it sick, devious, despicable – and it is.
But the uncomfortable truth for us as human beings seems so be,
that we are willing to settle far too easily with our very own blind spots.
We pretend to live in a lovely garden, while creating hell across the wall.
To know about this genuine risk, to be aware of it,
to look out for it not only in others, but in ourselves,
is probably the first step to avoid such disastrous failure of humanity.
Unfortunately a survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany,
which was conducted simultaneously in seven countries (including the UK) last November,
showed, that there is less and less knowledge of the Holocaust and the Shoah in our societies.
In France 46% of the adults interviewed claimed to never even have heard about it.
And those between 18-29years of age in all countries thought
the numbers of six million Jewish victims were exaggerated.
The survey is a frustrating read.
But it makes Holocaust Memorial Day and events like this one
more important than ever.
At the entrance of Block 4 in Auschwitz,
there is a quote by the Spanish philosopher George Santayana.
It reads: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
That must not happen.
Not, if we long for a better future.
Thank you for listening.
2 Kommentare
Thank you again for another really poignant and moving contribution to HMD in Tower Hamlets.
What you said about the Zone of Interest film really struck a chord with me. Watching the film it is easy to ask oneself how anyone could live like that next to a concentration camp. But as a metaphor, it is true that many of us switch off to the issues on our doorstep the minute we are home. I’d not thought of that before.
Alison
Gedenkveranstaltungen zum HMD, zeitgleich unheilige politische Allianzen mit Rechtpopulisten in Deutschland & … .
Da lese ich diese stärkende und bemerkenswerte Rede zum HMD. Danke !
Indeed, the Zone of Interest war DER Film 2024, so gut, dass und wie er hier eingepflegt ist.
Zudem hat mich die Schilderung des Erlebens des nächtlichen Auschwitz sehr berührt.
Mögen wir das Echo der Stimmen der Opfer von Naziterror, schweigender Mehrheit, Wegguckern…immer hören – kontemplierenund handeln.
Nie wieder ist jetzt !!!