Commemoration of Nazi Victims in Vienna Parliament and Warnings Against Right-Wing Extremism

At Hartheim Castle (Upper Austria), up to 30,000 people with disabilities and mental illnesses were murdered from 1940 to 1944. These included residents of psychiatric hospitals and care homes for people with disabilities, as well as concentration camp prisoners from the camps Mauthausen, Gusen, Ravensbrück, and Dachau who were unable to work.

Haubner Delivered Opening Speech at Commemoration in Vienna Parliament

In his opening speech, Haubner focused on "the tens of thousands of victims of the Hartheim killing center. Women, men, children - people who were declared unworthy of life because of a disability or illness." They needed protection, "what they received was disenfranchisement, dehumanization - and death," said the Second President of the National Council. Their death was a "systematic and perfidious crime, meticulously planned, emotionlessly administered."

The starting point was anti-Semitism. Initially, the hatred was directed against Jews, and subsequently, it expanded to "all people who were considered 'different'." Therefore, it is also necessary now to confront anti-Semitism in all its forms, said Haubner. In 2024, over 1,500 anti-Semitic incidents were registered in Austria, representing an increase of over 30 percent. "When anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe and worldwide - regardless of whether from the right, left, or from the migrant environment - it is necessary to stand by Jews," emphasized the Second President of the National Council.

Federal Council President Andrea Eder-Gitschthaler (ÖVP) emphasized in her closing words that the memory of the victims must be carried on: "These memories must not fall silent, they are a precious heritage that we must preserve and pass on." Knowledge must be passed on to the youth, "not as a burden but as a mandate." A "living culture of remembrance" and an open dialogue between generations are needed.

Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen also emphasized via X that this day is "remembrance and mandate," "to remain loud, to pay attention, and to consciously appreciate and strengthen fundamental values such as human dignity and solidarity." SPÖ leader and Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler also reminded that remembrance is simultaneously a "mandate for the future," "to counter hatred and agitation, exclusion and violence, anti-Semitism and racism with all our might." "Never again" is not an empty phrase, also emphasized Green Party leader Werner Kogler: "It is a promise - against forgetting, against trivializing, against repeating."

Warnings of Right-Wing Extremism at Opening of Exhibition at Heldenplatz

Previously, the President of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), Oskar Deutsch, and the Chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria, Willi Mernyi, opened an exhibition at Heldenplatz. They warned against the resurgence of right-wing extremism. While Deutsch condemned the rising antisemitism, Mernyi appealed to the police to continue taking action against right-wing extremist groups.

"We would very much like to stand here to celebrate 80 years of liberation without worry," said Deutsch at the exhibition opening - "but unfortunately, the evil spirit of the National Socialists, the master race ideology, antisemitism, the hostility towards everything that is supposedly different from oneself, has not been defeated." In Austria and worldwide, an "unbridled antisemitism that puts people in danger" is raging, continued the IKG President.

"It is not only the right-wing extremists who pay homage to the Nazis and sing about gassings in basements," emphasized Deutsch. It is also Islamist regimes and groups that demonize Jews and want to destroy the Jewish state. This hatred is not new. It is "the continuity of the extermination antisemitism of the Nazis," which is continued, among others, by the Iranian regime, the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad.

Deutsch and Mernyi not at Commemoration in Vienna Parliament

Mernyi had previously focused entirely on the domestic right-wing extremist scene. He showed a police photo of a discovered weapons cache in Lower Austria at Vienna's Heldenplatz. "The 'Never Again' begins with consistent action against right-wing extremists," he appealed to the executive, which must continue to take action against such cells. With the action, the MKÖ wants to emphasize the significance of Heldenplatz as a place of remembrance. Banners with photos of concentration camp survivors and their quotes are on display. One of the survivors is Mark Olsky, who was also personally present at the opening.

Both Deutsch and Mernyi stayed away from the commemoration in Parliament, even though Haubner, not Rosenkranz, chaired it. As Mernyi explained to the "Kurier" (Monday edition), the mere fact that Rosenkranz's name was on the invitation and that he was sitting in the audience was enough. "I do not attend an event where we commit to fighting right-wing extremism and someone like that then nods and applauds. That is not coherent for me," Mernyi was quoted as saying.

(APA/Red)

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