In order to commemorate the 800 Nazi forced laborers in Erding, Pax Christi invited them to a joint path of remembrance.
Erding - The 800 forced laborers in Erding who were housed in the barracks north of Eichenkofen during the Nazi reign of terror from 1939 to 1945 have left only a few traces.
On Saturday, Pax Christi Erding-Dorfen invited them to a joint path of remembrance to commemorate these almost forgotten people.
With his project “Face for Face”, the historian Giulio Salvati has brought the fate of the forced laborers in the Erding district into focus for the first time.
The large-format photos of the work cards at the rally last week on Schrannenplatz impressively showed the results of his seven years of research (we reported).
The former Reichsarbeitsdienstlager at Eichenkofen, to which Salvati now set out from the Church of St. Aegidius together with Pax Christi and almost 70 citizens, was also torn from oblivion.
“It's great that we were able to arouse so much interest with our campaign.
I did not expect this response, ”said the historian happily.
In the war years, a real train of people was on the idyllic path between blooming fields: in the morning from the camp north of Eichenkofen in the direction of Erding to work in the air base or to other jobs and in the evening back to the camp, as Gesine Goetz from Pax Christi reported .
At first it was French or Belgian contract workers, but later mainly forced deportees from Eastern Europe were accommodated here.
They were at the lowest end of the racist order, were barely able to speak the German language and therefore had hardly any contact with their employers or farmers.
Therefore, they would have left no traces and only a few stories, only index cards and documents still bear witness to their existence.
Now it is time to set a monument to these people who worked here and thus also laid the foundation stone for our later economic miracle, said the Pax Christi spokeswoman at the memorial ceremony at the burial mound from the Bronze Age. At that time the camp itself was a little further along the “Riemer Hölzl”, which is now privately owned.
For the time being, only a provisional memorial stele was installed, designed by the wood sculptor Wolfgang Fritz from Oberdingen.
“The stele is supposed to give back their dignity to the people who at the time were only seen as work material,” explained the artist, who is still very much moved by the project.
Built from scraps of wood, the stele is reminiscent of the barracks in which the forced laborers lived.
The slight inclination is also intentional, it should attract the attention of passers-by and encourage them to look at the pictures, explained Fritz.
+
Doesn't stand crooked by chance: The commemorative stele by wood sculptor Wolfgang Fritz is intended to attract the attention of passers-by and encourage them to look at the pictures.
© Peter Gebel
The appeal for a permanent memorial also reached Mayor Max Gotz and 2nd Mayor Petra Bauernfeind, who, along with some members of the city council, also went on the memorial walk.
The reading out of numerous names of forced laborers from the Ukraine, Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic, but also from France and Belgium, gave rise to thought.
Certainly they were homesick because they were exposed to a life of fear and violence without rights.
Did they find their families again after the war?
How did you cope with what you experienced?
Why was reparation withheld from them by Germany?
These and other questions make the fate of the forced laborers understandable even today.
The melancholy pieces of music by Kati Darbova (clarinet) and Stephan Glaubitz (bass) accompanied the memorial ceremony, which had a current reference: “None of us today is responsible for this injustice, but each of us has an obligation to be vigilant be that other nations are not devalued and exploited for our comfortable life here ", appealed Gesine Goetz and made it clear:" Everyone is a person with rights and dignity - then and now. "
Gerda and Peter Gebel