Minister of State and Coordinator of German-Polish Cooperation Cornelia Pieper will today (27 January) attend the ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Before that Minister of State Pieper will participate in a conference hosted by the Polish Government entitled “Auschwitz – Remembrance, Responsibility, Education”. The conference will discuss how Holocaust remembrance can be meaningfully communicated – particularly in the classroom – now that there are ever fewer eyewitnesses to give a personal account.

Minister of State Pieper:

“Both at national and international level, we need to find appropriate ways to communicate this legacy and the lesson that never again must a thing such as the Holocaust be allowed to happen. We Germans see this as an important part of living up to our responsibility for the past. That is why the joint history textbook Germany and Poland are planning together will also cover the Holocaust. We will continue to work closely, too, with the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research (ITF).”

The German Government and the federal states are contributing a sum of 60 million euro to the Auschwitz Foundation with a view to ensuring the Memorial is preserved for future generations.

The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research (ITF) with its Permanent Secretariat based in Berlin is responsible for the international coordination of Holocaust remembrance. Its currently 27 member states are endeavouring to create a common culture of remembrance.