An Elephant in the Room
Wina (Alexia Weiss), October 2024
German original: https://www.wina-magazin.at/ein-elefant-im-raum/
The amendment to the National Fund Act adopted this year stipulates, among other things, that the fund, which was established in 1995, hold an annual conference. On Tuesday, the fund invited guests to the first such symposium on the topic of “Remembrance and Responsibility” in parliament. However, the outcome of the parliamentary elections in September, in which the FPÖ came first, hung over the review of the work of the National Fund and the outlook for remembrance work and the fight against anti-Semitism in the future.
“There is an elephant in the room,” said Andreas Kranebitter, managing scientific director of the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW). In nine days, the new President of the National Council is to be elected from the ranks of the FPÖ MPs. ‘He will also be the Chairman of the National Fund,’ said Kranebitter, before making another eye-catching comment: ”I will no longer be sitting here.”
This is not a reaction of defiance to an election result, but to act as if one were fighting anti-Semitism together with people who speak of “globalists” is “not on”. Taking responsibility here also means “standing up against some practices”, he said in the direction of politics.
What he meant by that, not wanting to sit here anymore, WINA Kranebitter asked after the conference. He emphasized that they would not withdraw from committee work, as this would be counterproductive. However, he would definitely not participate in public appearances such as the annual conference of the National Fund or the presentation of the Simon Wiesenthal Prize. The DÖW would not lend itself to such things. And it was important to him to make this clear publicly and in a setting such as this conference.
IKG President Oskar Deutsch also had strong words on the matter: “It is unacceptable that the second-highest-ranking person in the country is a member of a right-wing extremist party. It cannot be. If we know what the President of the National Council has to do, such as chairing the National Fund and the Cemeteries Fund, he is also responsible for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize and much more, then this is a mockery of the victims, those who are still alive and those who have already passed away.” There is no law that requires the party with the highest number of votes to provide the President of the National Council. So there are alternatives. And the election of the National Council presidency is by secret ballot. He therefore called on the MPs to “make the right decision” next week.
A second current topic of this afternoon's conference: the massive increase in anti-Semitism worldwide and also in Austria following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. “All the efforts of the past years, all the remembrance work seemed to be bearing fruit,” emphasized Hannah Lessing, Chair of the National Fund. For a long time, it was therefore justifiably assumed that people learn from history. And yet the situation is now as it is. What can and must be done in the future?
“We have to get out of our bubble,” said Barbara Glück, Director of the Mauthausen Memorial and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Fund. And: ‘If we stand still, we have lost.’ Perhaps the memorial sites have sometimes taken the easy way out. ‘We sat in our places and waited for people to come to us.’ But it is also important to go out. Speaking of social media: the Mauthausen Memorial is now also represented on TikTok. 300,000 people visit the memorial each year. “With just one video, we can reach three times as many people.”
The IKG President once again emphasized that the last government in particular “did an enormous amount in the fight against anti-Semitism”. “On the other hand, anti-Semitism is not only overtaking us, but, to use an athletic analogy, it is lapping us.” He emphasized that it is the responsibility of all of civil society to take a stand against it - whether in a restaurant, on the soccer field or on the streetcar.
Earlier in the day, outgoing National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka emphasized that while it would be wrong to pretend that anti-Semitism could be permanently eradicated, we must do everything we can to put it in its place. And the fight against anti-Semitism is not the responsibility of the Jewish community, “that is our responsibility”. Reply from Deutsch: He does see it as the responsibility of a Jewish community to fight anti-Semitism, “but not on the front line”.
In any case, remembrance culture also means active engagement in the present, according to Sobotka. For too long, the focus in this fight has been placed only on racially motivated right-wing national anti-Semitism. This had attempted to give anti-Semitism a scientific foundation with eugenics. However, something similar is currently happening from the left: here, too, attempts are being made to create such a foundation, with the apartheid state of Israel and post-colonialism as buzzwords. In addition, there is anti-Semitism among immigrants and in the arts pages.
Like Sobotka and Deutsch, Kranebitter emphasized that the entire society and thus all institutions and organizations are responsible for the fight against antisemitism. “Combating antisemitism is a task for society as a whole, not just for the politics of memory.” Explaining the increase in hostility towards Jews with the failure of institutions such as the DÖW or the memorial sites is “a mantle we do not need to be draped in”.