On 27 January 2026, the local council held a commemorative event to honour the victims of National Socialism. After welcoming those present, Stephan Wapenhans opened the programme with a reading from the works of Elie Wiesel. The emotionally delivered texts, drawn from the eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, moved the approximately 40 guests and brought home the unfathomable suffering of the past in a powerful way.
Following the mayor’s speech, Esra Artuk, a Year 9 pupil at the local Heinitz Gymnasium, made a particularly powerful point. In her moving address, she urged vigilance and emphasised the enduring importance of remembrance – especially for the younger generations.
The full text of the mayor’s speech is attached (the spoken word takes precedence):
Ladies and gentlemen,
81 years ago today, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A place that, like no other, symbolises the inhuman acts of the Nazis.
This history is not a distant, abstract past. It has also left its mark here in our community. The Stolpersteine in Herzfelde are silent witnesses to this. It would be my sincere wish that we continue to explore and come to terms with this history for the other districts as well.
But whilst we still have the chance, it should not just be a day of remembrance, but also a day of listening. The opportunities to listen to those who experienced the horrors of the Second World War – or even survived the concentration camps – are dwindling year by year.
The opportunities to listen are dwindling – the need, it seems, is growing.
Even if there is a not entirely unfounded argument that the spirit of that time never completely disappeared, for a long time it was at least not audible. That has changed noticeably in recent years.
We face a major societal challenge today. We must endure social discontent, accept criticism and recognise it as necessary. At the same time, we must set clear boundaries and make it clear that: Feeling overwhelmed, insecure and dissatisfied with a complex, multipolar and multifaceted world does not justify succumbing to hatred and hate speech.
At the same time, we must find answers for those who long for simple answers. For those to whom pointing out complicated interrelationships seems like an excuse. We must listen to these people too. We must try to understand what drives them – without passing judgement, but with the clear mandate to highlight democratic solutions.
As a local authority, the lowest level of government and thus seemingly directly responsible for the everyday realities of many people’s lives, we have a special role to play in this:
To give ‘home’ a positive connotation – not an ideological one.
To understand community as something inclusive and diverse – not as something ethnic.
To strengthen trust in local democratic processes and not to sound their death knell.
That is our responsibility.
This responsibility stems from the horrors that the National Socialists brought upon our country and the world. From a misanthropic ideology that systematically exterminated people who did not fit into its world view – because they believed differently, lived differently.
These figures are well known, and yet even today they are almost impossible to comprehend. What we can, however, grasp and understand are the mechanisms, the parallels and the failings that paved the way for this back then. Recognising these, naming them and taking a clear stand – that is our task.
This, alongside listening, is our responsibility. This responsibility does not begin just anywhere – it begins here, in our community.
Thank you.