UPDATE: Call to verify victims database by August 10, 2020
The Documentation Centre of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW), is calling on the descendants and relatives of Austrian Holocaust victims to consult its victims database to ensure that the names of their murdered relatives will be engraved on the Wall of Names Memorial. If not, send their information directly to DÖW at office@doew.at
Any additions submitted by August 10, 2020, will be considered for the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial. Victims registered after the deadline of will still be registered on another stele of the memorial.
"A person's name is inextricably linked to their individual persona. With this Memorial To The Jewish Children, Women And Men Of Austria Who Were Murdered In The Shoah, we will restore to these fellow Austrians their names, and with that, a piece of their personality, identity and human dignity," said Austrian Federal Minister for the European Union and Constitution Karoline Edtstadler at a ceremony on June 22, 2020, to mark the start of construction of the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial in Vienna’s city center.
Inspired by the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, the memorial walls will carry the name of every Austrian Jew who fell victim to the NS regime, showing that the victims were not numbers, but human beings, each with their own individual identity, hopes and dreams. The grand opening is scheduled for fall 2021.
Ground-breaking ceremony on June 22, 2020, for the Shoah Wall of Names Memorial in Vienna’s Ostarrichi Park, a central space located adjacent to the Campus of the University of Vienna and the Austrian National Bank.
In the future, Austria would be measured by how anti-Semitism in all its forms and expressions was fought "on the streets, on the Internet, in our society, in politics. For thoughts become words and words become deeds. In the future, however, we will also be judged by what we do today to create a society free of extremism," stated Ms. Edtstadler.
Federal Minister for the European Union and Constitution Karoline Edtstadler speaks during the ground-breaking ceremony.
The Austrian people have a special historical responsibility with regard to the darkest chapters of history. "As Europeans we have a special responsibility to uphold our values: democracy, human rights and the rule of law. In the future, however, we will also be measured by the fact that we will remember the murder of Jews in Europe not only as an abstract number, but alive in our memories: In our case, we are talking about 64,259 Jewish Austrians, real existing people, whose names are restored, not lost. So that the memory lives on and is inseparably linked to an individual person and a personal fate. Today, tomorrow and for future generations", said the Minister, who assured that Austrian Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, for whom this project is a matter close to his heart, would do everything in his power to ensure that it was implemented. Karoline Edtstadler also thanked all those people who “showed commitment and visionary thinking” in making this project possible. This includes, above all, the initiator, Austrian-born Holocaust survivor Kurt Yakov Tutter.
Minister Karoline Edtstadler with Oskar Deutsch, President of the Jewish Community of Vienna and U.S. Ambassador to Austria Trevor Traina
Inspired by the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem, the National Memorial to the Belgian Jew Martyrs in Anderlecht near Brussels, the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, and the Dutch Holocaust Memorial planned in Amsterdam, the project initiator Kurt Yakov Tutter, a Holocaust survivor who once fled from Austria to Canada via Belgium while his parents were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered there, had been lobbying with his non-profit Gedenkstaette Namensmauern (Memorial Walls of Names) for such a memorial to be built in Austria for almost 20 years.
The “gathering of names”, a bipartisan project, started in 1995 under then Chancellor Franz Vranitzky and then Vice Chancellor Erhard Busek. It is conducted by the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW).
In 2018, the Austrian Government decided to almost entirely fund the new memorial, whose construction costs are estimated to total $6 million (€5.3 million).
Learn more: https://www.shoah-namensmauern-wien.at/en/
Visualization of the Memorial.
Concept of the Memorial: Kurt Yakov Tutter
Layout and Landscaping: Univ. Prof. Dr. John Cirka MRAIC
Design, Walls of Names: Wehofer Architects, Vienna
All photos © Austrian Federal Chancellery, Dragan Tatic
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