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A friendship that continues to grow

2020-08-12T05:34:04.406Z


Five years ago, the districts of Dachau and Oswiecim / Auschwitz sealed their partnership with a contract. A reason to remember how much has happened since then and what moving moments there were during that time.


Five years ago, the districts of Dachau and Oswiecim / Auschwitz sealed their partnership with a contract. A reason to remember how much has happened since then and what moving moments there were during that time.

District - On the day of the signature, August 8, 2015, the district councilors of both districts, district administrators Stefan Löwl and Zbigniew Starzec, met together with Max Mannheimer in the large meeting room of the Dachau district office to sign the partnership agreement. Max Mannheimer, survivor of the Auschwitz Birkenau extermination camp and the Dachau concentration camp, recalled the great responsibility this partnership entails, because "Oswiecim is not just any town in Poland, but a place of greatest German debt in human history".

Many visits followed on the commemorative days, this year on the 75th anniversary of the liberation in Auschwitz (in Dachau the celebrations were canceled due to the corona pandemic). "With wreath-laying wreaths that were more than just symbols and gestures, but a sign of deep shame and bowing to the victims," ​​as Marese Hoffmann, the partnership officer of the district of Dachau, explained in a press release. And it has "the exuberant life" at encounters at the Dachauer Volksfest and the Life Festival Oswiecim with the outstanding international stars like Queen, Elton John and Santana as well as the fantastic performances of the Dachau bands Owing To The Rain (2016), Kandinsky (2017) and the big band Dachau (2018).

The creation of the “Peace Unites” murals in Oswiecim and here in the Dachau district created an intensive connection between the young people who designed these walls. Max Mannheimer smiles from the wall of the Greta Fischer School, “as if he wanted to say that this is how German-Polish friendship in a common Europe should look”, says Hoffmann: young people who are committed to peace against right-wing hatred and agitation. The German-Polish Culture Days were “highlights that will be remembered above all by our Polish fellow citizens”.

After the Polish municipal elections in autumn 2018, in which Marcin Niedziela became the new district administrator, the cooperation has become even more intensive, according to Marese Hoffmann. Together with the partner district, the district of Dachau organized a competition for young people “My Europe” for the 2019 European elections. In 2019, the Oswiecim district celebrated 20 years of territorial reform in Poland. The delegation from the Dachau district was also there. In recognition of the ever-deepening partnership and friendship, District Administrator Marcin Niedziela presented the representatives of the Dachau district with a medal of merit.

The first contacts were made between the Max Mannheimer Study Center and the International Youth Meeting Center in Oswiecim, the important educational institutions of the two districts, and plans for a successful future cooperation were forged.

"The next few years should now serve to establish as many contacts as possible between the citizens of both districts," says Marese Hoffmann. The Polish Consul General Andrzej Osiak emphasized at the Culture Days: "A partnership lives from the people!"

The partnership is to be continued in the spirit of Max Mannheimer

Especially in times when the media often paint a very one-sided picture of Poland, it is important, according to Hoffmann, to get to know the other liberal side in personal encounters. “That is why we invite all individuals, associations and interested parties to actively help shape our partnership,” says Marese Hoffmann. The district of Oswiecim has a lot to offer in many areas, for example in sports (ice hockey, swimming), in music (music school, several choirs, orchestras, bands), in customs (folklore groups) and in educational work (international youth meeting place and center for dialogue and prayer). "Democratic dialogue in direct contact brings our peoples closer together," said Hoffmann.

Max Mannheimer, the great proponent of the partnership, said: “You are not to blame for what was, but you are responsible for ensuring that it no longer happens”. "In this spirit we want to continue our partnership", so the résumé of the partnership commissioner Hoffmann.  dn

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-08-12

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