There can be no talk of a darned 7th year

Created: 07/08/2022, 16:28

Post-rock: The band "Besides" from Oswiecim played in the courtyard of the Carmel Monastery.

© LRA

The partnership between the districts of Oswiecim and Dachau has existed for seven years.

This was celebrated together with a delegation from Poland.

Dachau – Today, August 8th, marks the seventh anniversary of the signing of the partnership agreement with the Polish district of Oswiecim/Auschwitz.

For this reason, District Administrator Andrzej Skrzypinski visited Dachau at the end of July together with a delegation from the partner district.

In addition to district councillors, there were Andrzej Kacorzyk (deputy director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and also head of the International Education Center on Auschwitz and the Holocaust), Dorota Mleczko (director of the new museum commemorating the inhabitants of the Oswiecim region) and Leszek Szuster (partnership officer in the district council). Oswiecim) to the delegation.

According to his own statements, District Administrator Stefan Löwl had been looking forward to this visit for a long time.

A joint anniversary celebration was planned two years ago, but had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

"Today we work more closely together than ever," says District Administrator Löwl.

“Joint projects, many visits, getting to know each other as equals and ultimately support in crisis situations have strengthened our friendship.

One thing is for sure: In our partnership there can be no question of the '7 darn year'”.

memory work

The program of the three-day visit to the district of Dachau was very intensive and began with participation in the vernissage “33 years of artist friendship Dachau-Oswiecim” (we reported).

Artists from Oswiecim also came to Dachau with the official delegation for this event.

Among them Pawel Warchol, who – along with the Dachau artist Heiko Klohn – is regarded as the 'father' of this exchange.

As with every visit, the representatives of both partner districts laid a wreath together at the Dachau concentration camp memorial site.

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Dachau newsletter.

"Remembrance work plays a very special role in our partnership," emphasized District Administrator Skrzypinski.

With a view to the current global political developments, but also to national and racist movements that are gaining strength, he also emphasized the importance of the message "Never again!" in today's times.

The meeting with local historian Anna Andlauer was also about remembrance work.

The guests walked the "path of remembrance" in Markt Indersdorf with her and learned a lot about the youngest victims of the National Socialist tyranny in the Dachau district.

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brick factory visited

The delegation's visit program also included a tour of the Hörl & Hartmann brick factory.

Partnership officer Marese Hoffmann reports: “In February I took part virtually in a conference in Oswiecim dedicated to climate and environmental protection.

In a lecture I reported, among other things, on the 'best practices' in our district.

That's why it was so important to me to show our friends a company where sustainability is a big issue and where production has been as ecological as possible for over a decade".

The guests were very impressed by this visit.

Oswiecim County and its municipalities signed an agreement in February 2022 to help improve the environment.

Visited Schoenbrunn

The guests also found the visit to the Franziskuswerk Schönbrunn very informative.

“Caring for and providing for the disabled is a major challenge for our Polish neighbors;

both with the aim of inclusion, but also because of the now noticeable shortage of skilled workers," said District Administrator Stefan Löwl, who, together with Edward Piechulek, the head of the hospital in Oswiecim, then also visited the Amperklinikum in Dachau and met there together with the clinic's managing director Marc Bernstädt and Chief Physician Hjalmar Hagedorn exchanged views on developments and challenges in the medical field in Germany and Poland.

Band from Oswiecim

The culmination of this year's visit by the delegation from Oswiecim on the 7th anniversary of the partnership was undoubtedly the concert by the post-rock band "Besides" in the courtyard of the Karmel monastery at the Dachau concentration camp memorial site.

The musicians come from the Oswiecim district and presented their album "Bystanders", which was inspired by the stories of the Auschwitz prisoners and the fate of the population who lived in the shadow of the camp during the Second World War.

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Bernadetta Czech-Sailer from the district administrator's office was enthusiastic about the openness of the nuns to the project.

“Tobias Schneider from the Dachau cultural office came up with the idea of ​​organizing the concert in the Karmel monastery.

I was looking for a suitable and unusual place,” she says.

Even though it was unusually loud and rocking that evening in this normally quiet place, the sisters have not regretted their decision: they said it was the right place and the right backdrop for this unusual concert.

District administrator Andrzej Skrzypinski said: "There are many ways that remind us of the terrible deeds of the Nazi era".

A post-rock concert is just one of them.

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