EN AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE

Didactic Materials
LET’S CEE Filmfestival
AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE
The following documents serve as didactic support for the Austrian documentary film by Magdalena
Żelasko, AMBASSADOR FOF REMEMBRANCE, about Stanisław Zalewski – a Polish survivor
of Nazi concentration camps and prisons, published in 2024.
#AmbassadorOfRemembrance #StanisławZalewski #MagdalenaŻelasko #ConcentrationCamp
#PoliticalPrisoner #NationalSocialism #WorldWarII #Poland #Austria #Auschwitz #Mauthausen
#Gusen

AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE
Documentary | director: Magdalena Żelasko | Austria 2024 | 100 min
Topics: Stanisław Zalewski | culture of remembrance | national socialism | concentration
camp | Mauthausen concentration camp | Gusen concentration camp | Pawiak prison |
Auschwitz concentration camp | forced labour | contemporary witness | politics | contemporary
history | society | responsibility | Warsaw Ghetto
Subjects: History | Social Studies | Politics | Ethics | Religion | Polish
Age recommendation: 14+
Further information: ? Film Website
Short synopsis
In September 1943, 17-year-old Stanisław Zalewski was arrested in Warsaw as a member of a
Polish resistance group and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for labour
service. From there, he was sent to Mauthausen and finally to the Gusen camp, where the
prisoners were forced to work for the German armaments industry under inhumane conditions.
For a long time, Stanisław Zalewski, like many other victims of Nazi terror, remained
silent about his painful experiences. It was only after forty years that he began to talk about
it, at events, memorial services, and in schools, and he continues to do so to this day, even at
the age of 99. Now, for the first time, he tells his stirring life story in a film as a deeply impressive
‘ambassador of remembrance’.
Stanisław Zalewski in the historic barrack in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp in
May 2022.

Long synopsis
As a 13-year-old boy, Stanisław Zalewski witnessed the invasion of Poland by the German
Wehrmacht on 1 September 1939 and the outbreak of the Second World War. Like many other
people in Poland, he initially thought the air battles were ‘exercises’. It was the day his childhood
came to an abrupt end.
Stanisław learned car mechanics and began working in a workshop in the infamous Warsaw
ghetto, where he witnessed the misery and despair of the Jewish population crammed in
there. He was in contact with various resistance groups and took part in small acts of sabotage
in the car repair shop. Among other things, the engines of German vehicles were manipulated
in such a way that they did not immediately break down, so suspicion could not fall on the
garage.
When he and like-minded people painted a symbol of the Polish resistance on the wall of a
destroyed house, he was arrested on 13 September 1943, and interrogated by the Gestapo.
From the Pawiak prison, where political prisoners were interned, he was sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau
extermination camp, where he stayed for around a month and had to perform
extremely hard physical labour. He learned about the harsh everyday life in the camp, full of
deprivation and harassment, and also had to watch as fellow Jews, often completely unaware,
were led to certain death by the SS henchmen.
In November 1943, he was selected to be sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Upper
Austria and shortly afterwards to the Gusen camp. In Gusen, the supposed ‘branch camp’
of Mauthausen, thousands of prisoners had to perform hard labour under inhumane conditions
in quarries and later also in underground tunnels, where the National Socialists had armament
materials produced. On 5 May 1945, shortly before the official surrender of the German
Reich, the Gusen camp was liberated, and the last remaining guards were disarmed and
arrested by the US army. It was not until 23 July 1945, after a long march and several weeks
of service with the American army, that Zalewski returned to the largely destroyed city of
Warsaw.
Stanisław Zalewski spent a total of 600 days in captivity and in the Nazi concentration camps.
Like many other contemporary witnesses, he found it difficult for a long time to talk about
what he had experienced; the memories were too painful. In many cases, the events of the
recent past were tabooed or hushed up by official authorities, including in Austria.
However, since he decided to speak about his life and experiences around forty years ago,
motivated by his son Hubert, Stanisław Zalewski has tirelessly visited memorials, events, and
schools to educate young people about the crimes committed in the Nazi concentration
camps, despite his now very advanced age. Stanisław Zalewski also talks about current political
developments and campaigns against all forms of discrimination. And he continues to fight
for the former concentration camp site in Gusen to become a worthy place of remembrance,
and he hopes to live to see this happen.
He is a wise, charismatic, and deeply impressive ‘ambassador of remembrance’, who is portrayed
here for the first time in a film.

Historical background
During the Second World War, the Germans and their allies set up around 12,000 camps, subcamps,
labour detachments, and other extermination sites in the Third Reich and 17 occupied
countries. In total, around 18 million prisoners and prisoners of war were imprisoned there.
People of different ages, nationalities, and religions. 11 million people perished there. It is not
possible to determine the exact number of victims; the national socialists largely succeeded
in covering up the traces of their crimes. In the concentration camps alone, where starvation
combined with inhumane labour led to extermination, around 7.2 million people perished.
The survivors often did not want to talk about what they had seen and experienced. Others
needed years to be able to talk about it.
Like Stanisław Zalewski, born in 1925, who has been the tirelessly active chairman of the Polish
Association of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi Prisons and Concentration Camps and a member
of the International Auschwitz Committee since 2008. As a contemporary witness, he still
visits schools and memorials today to make people aware of the immeasurable crimes committed
in Nazi concentration camps. This is his story.
Source: Presskit
Stanisław Zalewski at anti-aircraft trenches in front of the former building of the Polish Army
Recruitment Centre in Warsaw before his arrest (photo from the private archive) and on the
roll call square of the Gusen concentration camp in May 2023. Source: Presskit

Glossary
Bergkristall: The largest Nazi construction project on Austrian territory was the underground labyrinth
of tunnels in St. Georgen an der Gusen. A secret factory for the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet
fighter was built under the code name "Bergkristall."
Source: ? Austria's underground Nazi legacy (spiegel.de, in German)
Crematorium: term for a facility for burning corpses. Many concentration camps had incinerators
to cremate the bodies of the murdered prisoners. The buildings often also housed execution sites
and gas chambers, such as in Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Mauthausen.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Krematorium
Death march: term for the forced marches and transports of concentration camp prisoners organised
by the SS in the final months before the end of the war to concentration camps further away
from the front. Many prisoners died of exhaustion during these transports and forced marches or
were shot by the guards along the way.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Todesmarsch
Deportation: A term for the forced resettlement or removal of people from their areas of residence,
sometimes under threat or the use of force. During the Nazi era, entire population groups
such as Jews, Sinti, and Roma were initially deported from the German Reich and then from the
rest of Europe to concentration camps, ghettos, and concentration or extermination camps in the
occupied eastern territories, where they were murdered.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Deportation
Eastern front: The German-Soviet battleground was one of the largest and deadliest of the Second
World War. On 22 June 1941, the German Wehrmacht and its allies invaded the Soviet Union. The
front stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea over a distance of almost 1,600 kilometres at
the start of the attack. Large areas of Soviet territory were quickly conquered. Within six months,
it had advanced over 1,200 km eastward to Moscow. The German troops waged a "war of annihilation"
against the Soviet Union and its population, in which millions of civilians fell victim. At the
end, however, the Soviet military succeeded in pushing back the German troops and capturing
Berlin in the spring of 1945. Above all, however, the cold and frosty snowstorms in winter exhausted
the German and Soviet soldiers to the limits of their physical and mental endurance. Over
3.8 million Germans died on the Eastern Front, far more than two thirds of all German soldiers
killed in the Second World War.
Sources: ? US Holocaust Memorial Museum | Ostfront ? Lebendiges Museum | Ostfront
Evacuation: Evacuation means the clearing of an area or building of people for their protection.
In Nazi parlance, however, the word was used as a cover term for the deportation and murder of
people.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Evakuierung

Final Solution: A national socialist term for the systematically organised mass murder of European
Jews, Sinti, and Roma. This began in the form of mass shootings after the invasion of
the Soviet Union by German troops in June 1941.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Endlösung
Forced labour: term for the exploitation of human labour for little or no pay. National socialist
Germany created one of the largest forced labour systems in history, with a total of over 12
million forced labourers. In addition to prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates, millions
of civilians from occupied European countries were, for the most part, deported and
abused by German industry as forced labourers.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Zwangsarbeit
Genocide: the deliberate murder, extermination, or other destruction of ethnic groups on the
basis of their alleged racial, ethnic, or social characteristics, nationality, or religious beliefs.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Völkermord
Ghetto: term for parts of towns and cities, often sealed off by walls or barbed wire fences, in
which Jews, Sinti, and Roma had to live separately from the rest of the population. Ghettos
were set up in many Nazi-occupied countries, especially in the occupied Polish territories. Because
many people were deliberately housed in a small space, ghettos were usually hopelessly
overcrowded after a short time. The living conditions there were inhumane. Many of the men,
women, and children crammed into ghettos died miserably from cold, hunger, and disease.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Ghetto
Kapo, or prisoner functionary: The SS deployed prisoner functionaries in all concentration
camps. They were ordered to direct and control many of the immediate processes of everyday
camp life on behalf of the SS. On the one hand, the SS administration saved on its own personnel
and costs in this way; on the other hand, a camp hierarchy was deliberately created to
prevent the development of broad solidarity among the prisoners. Prisoner functionaries were
given some concessions, e.g., a separate sleeping area, better food, and easier labour. Some
prisoner functionaries stood up for their fellow prisoners and tried to protect them from the
attacks of the SS. Others acted just as brutally as the SS personnel and were feared and hated
by the prisoners.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Funktionshäftling
Messerschmitt: Messerschmitt GmbH Regensburg was one of the most important manufacturers
of fighter planes in the German Reich. In 1943, it transferred parts of its production to
the Gusen and Mauthausen concentration camps.
Source: ? Austria's underground Nazi legacy (spiegel.de, in German)

Pawiak Prison: Warsaw's Pawiak Prison was built between 1830 and 1835, when this part of
Poland was under the control of the Russian Tsarist Empire. When Poland became independent,
Pawiak was a remand prison. After the Wehrmacht attack on Poland and the invasion of
Warsaw by German troops in autumn 1939, it became the Gestapo's main prison. The Pawiak
prison was under the command of the commander of the Security Police and SD; the guards
were SS men and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen. Although the prison was located in the centre
of the Warsaw ghetto, established in 1940, most of the prisoners were non-Jewish Poles, including
many members of the resistance and the Polish intelligentsia. The prison was infamous
for the brutal treatment of prisoners. Many of the up to 100,000 prisoners who passed
through the prison between 1939 and 1944 were shot or tortured to death after their arrest.
Around 60,000 prisoners were transported to other prisons and concentration camps. During
the Warsaw Uprising from August to October 1944, the SS dissolved the prison. On 21 August
1944, SS men murdered the last prisoners and blew up the building.
Source: ? Memorial Museums | Gefängnismuseum Pawiak
Sabotage: When the Germans invaded Poland, resistance cells quickly emerged to oppose the
German occupation terror. By the end of 1942, the Polish underground state had grown into
a movement with more than 200,000 members, which grew to around 350,000 by the end of
the war. The Polish underground carried out most of its damage on occupied Polish territory.
Thousands of assassinations and tens of thousands of sabotage operations inflicted huge
losses on the enemy and significantly weakened its eastern front. The largest operation was
certainly "Aktion Burza" in 1944, in which an uprising against the German occupiers was carried
out in Warsaw and lasted a whole two months. Hidden underground printing shops also
began publishing over 180 magazines. The paper and printing ink had been stolen from the
Germans. Alongside the German posters announcing the daily number of executions, words
appeared on the walls. Words of remembrance, hatred, scorn, and disdain, but also symbols
of resistance, such as the anchor symbol of fighting Poland called Kotwica, made up of the
letters P and W, or the symbol of a turtle, which stood for "work slowly,".
Sources: ? US Holocaust Memorial Museum | Destruction of Warsaw, Poland
? lernen-aus-der-geschichte.de | Kotwica. The Polish underground state during WW2 (in
German)
Selection: term used to categorise people as "worthy of life" or "unworthy of life." For example,
selections were made on the arrival of transports at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination
camp. People were divided into "fit for labour" and "unfit for labour" (and therefore destined
for death in the gas chambers).
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Selektion
SS, or Schutzstaffel: The Schutzstaffel was founded in 1925 as Hitler's personal bodyguard.
From 1934, the highest rank within the SS was Reichsführer SS. Heinrich Himmler held this
position until 1945. Under his leadership, the SS was developed into an elite unit that became
the central instrument of state terror. As part of the “final solution," the SS played a key role
in the genocide of the European Jews and the Sinti and Roma.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Schutzstaffel

Volkssturm: The "Volkssturm" was a regionally bound civilian fighting force set up by the Führer's
decree of 25 September 1944. Men between the ages of 16 and 60 who were not yet
soldiers in the Wehrmacht were conscripted. The youths and men usually had to build antitank
obstacles in their home region and were supposed to fight the advancing Allied troops
with the simplest of weapons.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Volkssturm
Wehrmacht: The army of National Socialist Germany has been known as the "Wehrmacht"
since 1935. With the reintroduction of universal conscription, the Wehrmacht was rapidly expanded
in 1935, incorporating not only the army but also the navy and the air force. The supreme
commander of the Wehrmacht was Hitler, while the Reich Minister of War was in
charge of command and control.
Source: ? verortungen.de | Glossar | Wehrmacht

Original quotes by Stanisław Zalewski from
AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE
About the first day of the war
I went off to school dressed like that. And suddenly, aeroplanes came, and our air defence
started shooting at them. People said, "Oh, surely, just exercise." But the noise of the falling
bombs dispelled the illusions. This was the war that had been felt for several months. On open
spaces and squares, trenches were dug for air defence, and anti-aircraft warfare was set up
on the Vistula. And that was the first day of the war.
About the Warsaw Ghetto
As you walked through the gate, you saw people so emaciated that their clothes hung as if on
a skeleton. People were walking back and forth as if they had taken drugs. With their arms
hanging down, they looked at the ground or the sky. Women had small stalls, but they were
cages with bars where there were pieces of bread, a roll, or something like that. Children were
sitting next to it. It looked like a camp.
The Warsaw ghetto was the precursor to the concentration camp. The Jews in the ghetto were
used for various jobs. They cleaned up outside the ghetto and got something in return. Further.
There were selections at times. I saw that the Jews who were selected – I don't know according
to what criteria – were taken to the so-called transshipment point, from where they were taken
to concentration camps, mostly to Treblinka, and we know what happened to them there.
About the transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau
There were goods trains there. I emphasise this because the general opinion is that prisoners
were transported in cattle wagons. Some twist the facts to heighten the drama. If they really
were wagons for the transport of live animals, then that would be first class. Wagons for the
transport of live animals have large ventilation openings and are designed in such a way that
the animals are not injured when the train moves. There were so many prisoners in the carriage
that you could stand relatively freely, but if someone sat down, it became cramped.
About the slogan ‘work makes one free’
And so, the funeral procession continued until we reached the gate with the infamous saying,
"Work makes one free." I didn't know at the time what that meant, but I had learned German
before and knew a few words. So, work and freedom. I thought, aha, work, so if I am going to
work, I will be freed. That's how I translated it for myself.
About his prisoner number
I have a number on the inside of my left upper arm. My number is 156569. So many years have
passed, and I still remember it. This number is still alive because when I'm here, memories of
what happened here come flooding back.

From the ZIB report (ORF) in May 2023.
About undernourishment
Grass and other things grew next to the barracks – spurge, as they say, or dandelions. When
the prisoners were unobserved, they ran out, tore up the grass, and ate blades of grass and
dandelions. That's how hungry they were. It ended differently.
About the fate of Jewish fellow human beings
I remember. In Auschwitz-Birkenau. I remember how naked women, alive, were taken from the
barracks to the gas chamber in trucks. I hear their screams in my subconscious when I return
to those events in my thoughts. I remember well-dressed people, their armbands with the Star
of David, who walked without any sign of fear. A very large group was led by only one SS soldier.
He led them to the crematorium. But only I knew and a few prisoners who were standing
next to me.
About the arrival at the Mauthausen concentration camp
And that's how I got to Mauthausen. Bathing in the cold water in the evening, outside all the
time, it was already early November. In the morning, we were only given shirts, underpants,
and wooden shoes. And so we walked, driven by SS soldiers, from Mauthausen to Gusen. That's
about five kilometres. We know that whoever fell down did not get up again.
About the Gusen camp
I witnessed death sentences for practicing religion. I witnessed how a prisoner in a functionary
role killed sick prisoners. How prisoners went into the electric barbed wires to commit suicide.
On the first day of freedom, I was a witness to drastic vigilante justice by the liberated prisoners
on prisoner functionaries, who, on the orders of the camp authorities or out of their own sadistic
attitude that had arisen in the camp, had killed fellow prisoners. These are just a few
examples.

Stanisław Zalewski in the “Bergkristall” tunnel system in May 2023
About the day of liberation in May 1945
On 3 May, after the wake-up call, there was no gathering for work. There was no food distribution
because there was nothing to hand out. We were simply not called to work. We were
upset. And the second astonishment was that there were no more German soldiers at the posts
or on the watchtowers, but, as we were told later, the so-called Volkssturm. Civil servants, but
militarised. Old men who stood on the towers and called out to us that the war was over and
we could run away. But the prisoners didn't believe it. They thought it was a deception and
stayed in the camp. And that was the first day of freedom – a sad first day of freedom.
About his method of living with these memories
To live normally and creatively, I try not to think about the camp events. I have found a method
that works for me. I have packed my memories in a waterproof box, wrapped with a string,
and thrown them into the water. And I pull them up occasionally, for today's event, for example,
but after using the contents, I throw the box back into the water.
About war and forgiveness
When I pray the Our Father, I say, “Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we
forgive those who sin against us.” Does forgiveness mean forgetting the injustice done? To
refrain from punishment? To waive compensation? Can they be forgiven? They who had the
inscription “God with us” on their belt buckle and deliberately killed people? I emphasise: with
full intent. Because war is the art of killing. He who kills more wins. War causes violence on
both sides, and the strongest dictates the law, which can be very cruel. War blurs the line between
good and evil. For this not to happen, there must be reconciliation between the peoples.
But reconciliation without historical truth and forgiveness is only a bridge without railings between
the banks of a ravine. You can walk over it, but not without fear.

About current events in Europe
I don't have to explain to you what is happening in Europe now. And that is why I regard with
great understanding, and at the same time with compassion and a certain respect, those who
are now experiencing what I experienced decades earlier.
About the memorial site in Gusen
I have a small favour to ask. This place that is going to be here, that is going to be built,
shouldn’t be a memorial. We don’t want any memorials anymore. We need spaces that are
influential on the mindset and intelligence of those who will visit this place.
About happiness
I am a happy person. But happiness doesn't fall from the sky. This is not a gift. It's not a present.
You have to work for happiness. And as I have said, only another person can give us happiness.
Castles won’t do it, nor will diamonds, nor will yachts and cars. Just another person. Therefore,
a human being should be a human being for another human being. And that is what happiness
is.
About the future of humanity
Every time I come here, thoughts come back to me, one after the other. Specifically, that people
have not drawn any conclusions. They have not learned any lessons for the future from what
happened here. This is evidenced by the incidents and events that are taking place all over the
world. Let's take the eastern border; let's take Africa or other countries. Things happen there
that claim hundreds or even thousands of lives. What is this? And all this for the goal of a single
person who has devised an ideology and, according to this ideology, wants to rule over others.
And what is that? This is the disregard of one person by another human being. If this continues,
then I don't know in which direction the world will go.
About the rebuilding of Warsaw
When you consider that after the war everything was in rubble, even the castle... And everything
was made possible by the sacrifice of the people, rebuilt in so-called communism. And
that is now strangely forgotten. But that was the effort of the people who wanted their capital
city back.
Source: Presskit

Biography of Stanisław Zalewski
Stanisław Zalewski was born on 1 October 1925 as one of nine siblings in Sucha Wola, near
Warsaw. He was only 14 years old when the Nazis invaded his country, sparking off the Second
World War. He began his training as a car mechanic and soon joined a resistance group.
Among other things, he tried to support the fight against the occupying forces by sabotaging
vehicles. He also painted signs of Polish resistance on the walls of buildings in Warsaw with
like-minded people. On 13 September 1943, however, Zalewski was arrested during one such
action and taken to the notorious Pawiak prison, where political prisoners were interned.
After interrogation by the Gestapo, he was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camp for labour service, around a month later he was transferred to Mauthausen and immediately
afterwards to the so-called Gusen branch camp. Until his liberation by the US Army in
May 1945, he spent a total of 600 days in the most inhumane conditions and hard physical
labour in Nazi concentration camps. In the Gusen II concentration camp, Stanisław Zalewski
was part of the Messerschmitt and Bergkristall commandos and had to help produce aircraft
parts for the Nazis in the Bergkristall tunnel system. After his liberation, Stanisław Zalewski
was transported to Nuremberg by the US Army.
He returned to Poland after a 72-day march. He subsequently completed his schooling, studied
engineering, and started a family. After many years of not wanting or being able to talk
about his traumatic experiences, he has now dedicated himself to remembrance work for
some time and, through his valuable eyewitness accounts and as chairman of the Polish Association
of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi Prisons and Concentration Camps, ensures that
the horrors of that time are never forgotten. His autobiography ‘Events and Signs of the Times
from the Years 1939–1945’ was published in April 2020. He is particularly committed to the
establishment of a dignified memorial site at the Gusen concentration camp, which has long
been neglected in historical reappraisal. Stanisław Zalewski turns 99 shortly after the release
of the film AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE.
Stanisław Zalewski with his son Hubert at the press screening of the film
AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE at the Village Cinema Wien Mitte in May 2024.

INTERVIEW WITH STANISŁAW ZALEWSKI
Joachim Ciecierski: Mr Zalewski, what was a day in the Gusen labour camp like?
Stanisław Zalewski: That depended very much on the workplace. In the Messerschmitt detachment,
we worked ten hours a day. We got up at 5 a.m.; we had to make our beds properly;
at the beginning, we slept individually. Then there was a morning roll call, then breakfast in
the form of a bowl of unsweetened coffee with a little something extra. Then we were called
together, divided into labour detachments, and marched from the camp to the workplace.
Five of us walked at a steady pace. At the gate, the SS man counted the prisoners in the commando
led by the Kapo. It was different with the midday meal. It was either taken to the
workplace or we returned to the barracks in the camp to eat. We had to eat very quickly.
Sometimes, not everyone makes it in time. Then we went to work and returned to the camp
in the late afternoon. Counting at the gate, changing in the barracks, whoever had something
to change into, washing up, and standing for roll call. In Gusen, there were always roll calls for
all prisoners on the roll call square. Dinner was served after the roll call. The prisoners then
had free time until the bell rang. After the bell, everyone had to go to sleep.
Were the nights quiet?
Fortunately, I was in a barrack where there were no assaults by SS men and Kapos. However,
I learned from other colleagues that SS men would come in in the evening and catch prisoners
who the Kapo had noted down for avoiding work or because someone had taken off their cap
incorrectly.
Has this ever happened to you?
Prisoners noticed that there was a potato field near our road from the railway ramp to the
production hall. Two or three, I don't remember exactly, jumped off the wagon and dug up a
lot of potatoes. When they arrived in the hall, they put the potatoes in the oven that was used
to heat the room. During lunch, someone asked me to take them out so they wouldn't burn. I
had to pass a table where two SS men were sitting. As instructed, I took off my cap, put my
hands on my hips, and walked on at a parade pace. They pulled me back. When passing by
again, one of the seated men put his leg in front of me. Another SS man stood up and spoke
something in German; I only understood that I had done something wrong. He punched me in
the face with all his strength. I staggered but managed to get up. The second SS man told his
colleague that he didn't know how to hit properly. He stood up and hit me with his hand so
that I fell to the ground. After that, they were no longer interested in me. The only thought I
had when I got up was the fear that the potatoes were already burned. The hunger of a prisoner
decided everything.
545 days in the Mauthausen-Gusen camp. Over 30 days in Auschwitz. You said you locked
this time away in a watertight chest that you sent to the bottom of the ocean.
I have sunk it. But I tied a string to this chest. And this string is in a certain place. It was on
purpose. Because I had to recover after the camp and resurface to the surface of a social stratum.
My material existence depended on it. And I actually managed to do that. But when there
are any commemorations, I open this chest again and tell them what they asked me.

I don't talk about everything. I only answer questions on certain topics. When I've finished, I
throw the chest back into the water. But that doesn't always really work. As soon as all the
emotions are gone, some thoughts come back. And then the contents of this chest overcome
the defences of the water and enter my mind. It causes confusion and questions that I can't
answer. Being familiar with death in the camp was obvious. You knew why and by whom. But
now, with what is happening in the world, I realise that people have not drawn any conclusions
from the tragic history of the Second World War. Especially from the time when there were
German Nazi concentration camps. People commit military crimes and acts of violence against
other people in the name of their own purposes or for something else. That leads to victims.
It bears the hallmarks of genocide. And the tragic history of the Second World War is being
repeated here. That is an unpleasant memory for me. People suffered terribly back then, and
now it is happening again.
You say there are many conflicts and wars in the world. The most recent cruel war is taking
place several hundred kilometres away from Warsaw, in Ukraine. When you see pictures
from Ukraine today, I understand that these childhood memories keep coming back to you.
That's the tragic thing about it. I thought I had already forgotten these memories. I had lost
my sensitivity to what concerned me. But it turns out that's not true. When I heard the news,
I kind of digested it. But when I saw the destroyed houses, the corpses lying in the streets, the
children, the shelling of the soldiers, tanks smashed into small pieces, streets full of rubble,
and demolished houses, I immediately remembered 1939 and the concentration camps. It was
an indescribable feeling for me. Is it regret or sadness, or is it anger that there are people who
cannot live together in peace? People should live together in harmony and peace. And if there
are conflicts, they should be resolved. I don't know how, but there was the League of Nations,
for example, but it was later dissolved. Now we have the United Nations, which doesn't work
so well either.
40 years after the end of the war, you came to Mauthausen for the first time to see the
concentration camp, where you spent almost two years. You came with your son. How did
you experience it back then?
He forced it on me a little. I didn't want to see it myself. When I came and saw it, I didn't say
anything. Only my son started asking me questions: Father, where are the barracks? Father,
where is the crematorium? Where is your famous Messerschmitt commando? But when I saw
beautiful houses and villas with clean streets, I really didn't know what to say to him.
You are almost 100 years old. You are very committed to spreading knowledge about these
terrible times. You meet young people and travel around Europe, giving lectures. What can
I wish you? I know you would like to see the Gusen camp transformed into a real memorial
site like Auschwitz.
For me, a place of remembrance – and it can't be a memorial – is when someone who wasn't
in the camp enters the camp and immediately feels like a concentration camp prisoner. Something
like that can be created. After all, there are amusement parks. For example, if hell is
depicted there and a person enters, they feel like they're in hell. That is also the perception
you should experience.

You spent two years in concentration camps...
600 days, to be precise. In prisons and camps. I'm counting the arrests, the time in Pawiak
Prison, the interrogations in Szucha Alley, and the imprisonment in Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen.
It was exactly 600 days. At first, I didn't believe it myself, but I counted it
several times. I believe in paranormal phenomena. And this is a certain signal for me. For example,
when I took part in the last underground mobilisation, I met my mother in the courtyard.
She asked: – Where are you going, Stachu? And I, jokingly: – Oh, that doesn’t matter,
Mom. I won’t be back for another two years, the war will already be over by then. After exactly
2 years and 52 days, I returned to the same place. I counted it with a calendar in my hand.
When my mother died, she was 52 years old. She was fatally injured by a fragment of an artillery
shell during the Warsaw Uprising.
Unfortunately, she did not live to see your return.
Well. I was my mother's unwritten favourite child. And I had this brown suit. She carried it
with her when the family was away during the uprising. She always said: – When Stachu comes
back, he must have something to wear. Unfortunately, when I came back, the suit stayed, but
I didn't wear it. It was only after several years that I somehow managed to put it on.
Your mother and brother did not survive. But you survived, also thanks to them. The thought
that you would return from the war and see them again, gave you the will to survive.
That's how it was...
Source: ? Joachim Ciecierski / Polskie Radio, German editorial office. Reprinted with kind
permission.

Director Magdalena Żelasko
Magdalena Żelasko, born in the Polish city Krakow, has lived in Vienna for around 30 years.
The certified marketing and advertising expert studied Slavic studies as well as journalism and
communication science at the University of Vienna, where she completed her doctorate in
2005. She has worked in management for several international companies and as a journalist
for various Austrian and Polish media. Before founding the LET'S CEE association and managing
the successful festival of the same name from 2012 to 2018, she worked as a lecturer in
the Department of Culture and Communication at the University of Vienna. Since 2022, she
has been implementing the innovative EU-funded film education project ‘EU Youth Cinema:
Green Deal’, which is now offered in twelve countries.
Director’s statement
When I first met the then-94-year-old Stanisław Zalewski in Vienna around four years ago, I
was immediately taken by his personality and his life story: How can it be that someone who
spent 600 days in prisons and concentration camps is so full of joie de vivre and still has the
strength to work in an office three times a week and keep travelling back and forth between
Poland and Austria to speak to young people as a contemporary witness?
Stanisław Zalewski is now also the only active contemporary witness from the Gusen concentration
camp who is still able to take part in relevant commemorative events, most recently in
May 2023, which was covered by the media for the first time. The previous year was remembered
all too well when, for the first time, no contemporary witness was present at the official
commemorative event in Gusen, not even Stanisław Zalewski himself.

At the same time, the question arose in my mind: how can it be that someone who has so much
to tell – and is still able to do so thanks to his exceptionally perceptive memory – has never had
the opportunity to reach a broad, international audience as the protagonist of a documentary
film in order to bear witness, especially in times like these, to what it can lead to “when a
human stops being a human to another human”. There can never be enough anti-war films
that educate young generations about Nazi terror and Nazi crimes of violence. Especially when
those who remember that time are still alive.
So I started to accompany Stanisław Zalewski on countless activities with a small camera team
and to document his life story and his words for future generations. Over the past three years,
around 100 hours of footage have been recorded, with the footage from the former Mauthausen-Gusen
and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps being some of the most poignant.
In addition, several archive recordings, historical footage, television reports, and neverbefore-seen
memorabilia from Stanisław Zalewski’s private archive were edited into a film. The
result is an almost 100-minute documentary film about the charismatic contemporary witness.
From 1 September, the 85th anniversary of Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland and thus the
outbreak of the Second World War, the film will be shown in more than ten other countries
with the support of the Cineplexx cinema group, hopefully reaching many people regardless of
their origin, age, and cultural roots.
Source: Presskit

Tasks regarding AMBASSADOR OF REMEMBRANCE
1. Questions and tasks for the start of a preliminary discussion:
- What do the title and film poster tell you about the film, and what themes do you think
the film deals with? Have you already heard of this film?
- What does the quote "We live as long as there are people who remember us" mean?
- Watch the official trailer for the film [LINK]. What genre of film could it be?
- Gain an overview: How many members of the group have already dealt with the topics
of national socialism and the Holocaust. In what context has this dialogue taken place?
- What do you expect from a documentary film about contemporary witnesses during national
socialism?
- Collect ideas and perceptions. After watching the film, you can compare whether your
expectations were met.
Possible questions and tasks that can be given to the pupils for the screening:
Content:
- In your opinion, is there a general message that the film wants to convey? If so, what is it?
- Whose story is told in the film? Is it the story of a single person, or is this story common to
a group of people?
- Where was the film shot? What do viewers learn about the place(s) where the film is set?
How would you describe this place or these places? Have you visited them?
- Over what period of time is the story told?
Technical and artistic choices:
- What genre of film is it? How do you recognise it?
- What cinematic devices stand out? Pay attention to certain technical and artistic aspects:
Cinematography, sound, film music, editing – what do you recognise here?
- Perhaps also think about it: Why was a certain set, a certain camera angle, music, a certain
sound, and a certain lighting design chosen?
- Does this influence the content of the film? (For example, is it intended to evoke a certain
effect or mood in the viewer?)
Watching a documentary film:
- What are the visual and content criteria that make this film a documentary?
- Is documentary film pure observation, or does the director create a story? Are there
scenes that are more reminiscent of a feature film or seem staged? If so, which scenes are
these, and what are the characteristics that make it seem more "fictional"?
- What might the production process have been like? Were the people documented asked
questions that they then answered in the film? Or were they simply observed with the
camera without intervening in the events?
- Consider together: What could be the advantages, disadvantages, and difficulties of each
approach?

Personal perception of the film:
- How did I feel while watching the film? What emotions did the film awaken in me?
- Are there perhaps even personal experiences that I have to think about when watching
the film?
- Did the film remind me of other films, reports, videos, or clips?
- Do I like going to the cinema or do I prefer to watch films at home, and why?
In case there was a discussion held at the cinema after the film:
- What did you learn about the person(s) who were available for discussion afterwards?
- What personal or professional experiences do they have in relation to the film topic?
- What insights were gained from the subsequent discussion?
- Were all questions answered? If not, which questions are still open?
- NOTE: It is usually possible to submit additional questions to us by email. Our school cinema
team will be happy to help!
2. Debriefing:
Subjective thoughts:
For a debriefing, it is a good idea to let students spontaneously express their first impressions
of the film. There is space for subjective experiences and feelings in particular. Creative
methods such as mind maps or collecting topics, terms, and keywords together can
also be used for this initial approach to the film. Simple introductory questions are often
sufficient:
- How did you like the film?
- What did you particularly remember?
- Which quotes from the film do you remember?
Film content analysis:
- What is the film about?
- Who is the protagonist? What is his story?
- What are the film's locations?
- What is the message of the film? What is the purpose of the film?
- What is meant by a culture of remembrance? What is the purpose of eyewitness accounts?
Why are they important?
- What does the protagonist refer to with the phrase "what is happening in Europe right
now"? What is the connection to current political developments?
- Why is the establishment of a memorial site in Gusen important to him? How has the history
of Gusen been dealt with so far? What does he criticise about it?
- Did the film give the pupils new insights into the national socialist era?

Formal film analysis:
- How is the protagonist's story told?
- What stylistic methods are used in the film?
- What special camera angles were chosen? Were there any special features in the editing?
(short or long scenes, moving or fixed cameras, fast or slow editing)
- How does the camera relate to the protagonist?
- Was archive material used? If so, when was it used in the film?
- Was there a specific film score? How, when, and for what purpose is it used?
- Why and for what purpose could all the found stylistic means have been used?
3. Questions and tasks on national socialism and populism:
- Share your experiences. Have you already dealt with the topics of the Second World War,
national socialism, and the Holocaust? Where have you heard or learnt about it? Where
are the gaps in your knowledge? What do you not understand? What did you perhaps hear
for the first time in this film?
- Did the film present the topics of national socialism and the Holocaust differently than you
already knew?
- Try to summarise the topic of national socialism in your respective country. How was national
socialism dealt with in your own country? How does this reappraisal affect the present?
Has the film inspired you to engage more with the topics of national socialism?
- Research: Which nations and socio-political groups were particularly persecuted?
- Do you know of any other films dealing with Nazi dictatorship or culture of remembrance?
- There is a lot of talk in the media about right-wing and left-wing politics. Have you ever
heard of this? If so, how, where, and by whom? What do these terms mean, and how
might they relate to the film? Then collect definitions for populism.
4. Questions and tasks on the culture of remembrance:
- What do you understand by the term "contemporary witness"? Share your thoughts on
this term with each other. Do you all have the same thoughts and explanations? How do
they differ?
- Share your experiences. Have you heard other eyewitness accounts at this or other historical
points in time? What was this experience like for you?
- Discuss: Do you learn history better or easier when you learn it through personal accounts
or stories from contemporary witnesses? If so, why do you think you feel this way?
- Have you ever heard the term "contemporary document"? What does it mean? Give examples
of contemporary documents.
- Collect ideas: How do you think contemporary testimonies should be handled in the future?
How can eyewitness accounts be recorded and passed on?
- Discuss with each other: What could the term "culture of remembrance" mean? How and
why is it practiced? Collect examples of a practiced remembrance culture.
- How are the cultures of remembrance and contemporary witnesses connected?
- What questions did the film raise for you? Do any questions remain unanswered after
watching the film?
- Why is it important to visit memorial sites? Which ones have you already visited or plan to
visit?

5. Research and discussion on Gusen:
The significance of the Gusen camp complex has long been suppressed in Austrian history.
The pupils should research this on the Internet and then discuss it in class.
- What were and still are the problems in coming to terms with the horrific history of Gusen,
especially for local residents?
- How does the history of honouring Gusen fit in with Austria's victim thesis under national
socialism?
- What aspects could be of importance in the establishment of a memorial site in Gusen?
What must not be forgotten or should be given special attention?

Historical background information
The Warsaw Ghetto
Four weeks after the German invasion of Poland, the capital, Warsaw, was occupied. Until
1939, the largest Jewish community in Europe lived here with over 350,000 people, which was
around 30 percent of Warsaw's population. Immediately after the occupation, the German
units began to terrorise the Jewish population with coercive measures. Compulsory identification
with armbands, severe restrictions on freedom of movement, and the arbitrary confiscation
of property were just some of these. Violent attacks by the SS and police units against
the Jewish population were also part of the programme.
As early as November 1939, the German occupiers declared parts of the city centre, which
were predominantly inhabited by the Jewish population, to be a 'restricted area’. On 2 October
1940, Ludwig Fischer, governor of the Warsaw district, issued the order to establish the
ghetto. From 16 November 1940, over 450,000 people were crammed into an area of just over
three square kilometres, which made up around 2.4 percent of Warsaw's surface area, and
isolated from the rest of the city. On average, around 7.2 people lived in one room in the
ghetto.
Not only the Jewish population of Warsaw but also Jewish people from other areas of Poland
and from Germany were interned here. Members of the Sinti and Roma were also imprisoned
in the Warsaw ghetto by order of the authorities and the police. The non-Jewish residents of
the district were forced to leave their homes beforehand, and some of them were moved into
the rooms vacated by the Jewish population.
A three-metre-high, 18-kilometre-long wall was erected around the ghetto. Many residents of
the ghetto lost their livelihoods and had to perform forced labour in ghetto-owned factories
and private businesses. Due to the lack of supplies, the residents were forced to sell their
private assets for food. Later, the destitute people tried to smuggle goods over the wall. For
many, this was the only way to survive. Daily life in the ghetto was extremely cramped, characterised
by surveillance, terror, hunger, and epidemics. The living conditions were catastrophic.
Between November 1940 and July 1942, it is estimated that over 80,000 people died
as a result of the unbearable living conditions.
In 1942, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS, ordered the so-called ‘resettlement’ of the ghetto's
population. This meant deportation to extermination and labour camps. The first deportations
to the Treblinka extermination camp began in July 1942 as part of the ‘Final Solution
to the Jewish Question’, as the National Socialists called it. By the end of 1942, the majority of
the ghetto residents had been deported and murdered.
Between July and September 1942, around 250,000 to 280,000 people were deported from
the ghetto, and far more than 10,000 residents were murdered during these deportations in
Warsaw itself. Between 35,000 and 60,000 people remained in the ghetto at this time.

The Warsaw Ghetto, archive material from the Institute of National Remembrance
The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto
On 28 July 1942, the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organisation, ŻOB) was
founded by mostly young men and women. The aim of the resistance organisation was to fight
against the ongoing deportations. Initially, the organisation only carried out isolated actions,
such as arson attacks on German warehouses. Under the leadership of 24-year-old Mordechaj
Anielewicz, the ŻOB revived as a rallying organisation for the Jewish resistance groups in the
ghetto from November 1942 onwards. Marek Edelman, a youth functionary, was also on the
management committee. At the end of 1942, the ŻOB had around 500 members. Through
contacts with the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), the fighters came into possession
of a few weapons, mainly pistols and explosives.
On 18 January 1943, the ŻOB put up armed resistance against the Germans' attempt to carry
out further deportations. The ŻOB suspected that the plan was to dissolve the ghetto. The SS
deported a total of 5,000 people by 21 January and over a thousand people were killed in the
ghetto, but because the Nazi occupiers were surprised by the resistance of the Jewish population,
they stopped the evacuation of the ghetto. Encouraged by this success, the members
of the fighting organisation began constructing underground bunkers and hiding places, as
they feared the deportation of the remaining ghetto population. This was planned to begin on
19 April and was to take place three days later.
On the morning of 19 April, shortly before the start of Passover, SS units marched into the
ghetto. Under Anielewicz's command, the insurgents began fighting with grenades, some of
which they had made themselves. The insurgents pushed the surprised Germans back to the
ghetto walls on the first day. On the third day of the uprising, the SS began to systematically
burn down the ghetto and blow up bunkers and buildings in order to break the resistance.
Despite the German troops clearly outnumbering the few hundred fighters, the ghetto population
maintained the resistance for nearly four weeks. There was also organised resistance in
other ghettos (e.g., Bialystok, Minsk) and concentration camps (e.g., Treblinka, Sobibor).

The ŻOB command bunker was located at 18 Miła Street, where Anielewicz and other ŻOB
leaders committed suicide on 8 May 1943 due to the steadily worsening situation. Marek Edelman
managed to escape through a manhole and go into hiding in Warsaw. He fought against
the National Socialist occupiers once again in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and was one of the
co-founders of the free trade union Solidarność in 1980. Until his death in 2009, Edelman was
probably the most important contemporary witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
On 16 May, the SS destroyed the large synagogue in the ghetto as a symbolic action. The SS
brigade leader, Jürgen Stroop, was in charge of the demolition and recorded the events in a
report. ‘There is no longer a Jewish neighbourhood in Warsaw!’ was the title of Stroop's report.
By that day, the SS and police units had killed over 56,000 people or transported them
to extermination camps. A few were still able to hide or flee.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is of enormous significance because it symbolised the armed
resistance of Jews against the Nazi terror regime. The fact that oppressed people fought back
despite the hopelessness of their resistance still characterises Jewish self-image today.
Source: Presskit

The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp
The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was established in mid-1940 in the suburbs of
the Polish town of Oświęcim, which had been annexed to the German Reich. The Germans
gave the town the name 'Auschwitz'. As the camp's expansion progressed, Auschwitz-Birkenau
became the largest mass extermination centre in occupied Europe, where the Nazis murdered
the majority of the deported Jewish people in gas chambers. The Auschwitz concentration
camp became a worldwide symbol of the Holocaust/Shoa, genocide, and terror. Red Army
troops liberated it on 27 January 1945.
Of at least 1.3 million people deported to the Auschwitz camp complex, around 1.1 million
were murdered. Out of the over 5.6 million Holocaust victims, racial persecution led to the
murder of approximately one million Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau. There were also around
160,000 non-Jewish victims, including Sinti, Roma, and Poles who were also racially motivated,
as well as male homosexuals because of their sexual behaviour. Around 900,000 of the deportees
were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after their arrival. A further 200,000
people died as a result of illness, malnutrition, abuse, and medical experiments, or were later
selected as unfit for further forced labour and murdered. The countries of origin of most of
those murdered were Belgium, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
Today, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum preserves or restores many parts of two large
concentration camps to their original state. They are part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State
Museum, a Holocaust memorial and Jewish cemetery on the site of the two former concentration
camps I and II, which is open to the public. This museum is also a memorial site, an
international meeting place, and a Holocaust research centre. UNESCO has declared Auschwitz-Birkenau,
the German National Socialist Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–
1945), a World Heritage Site.
Source: Presskit
View of the gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp, archive material from the State Museum
Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Mauthausen concentration camp
On 12 March 1938, the ‘Anschluss’ (‘Annexation’) of austrofascist Austria to the German Reich
took place. Two weeks later, the National Socialist Gauleiter (regional head) of Upper Austria,
August Eigruber, announced to an enthusiastic audience that his Gau would have the ‘distinction’
of building a concentration camp. The location chosen was the town of Mauthausen on
the Danube. Political opponents and groups of people labelled as ‘criminal’ or ‘antisocial’
would be imprisoned here and forced to work in the granite quarries. On 8 August 1938, the
SS transferred the first prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp. During this phase, the
prisoners, who were all Germans and Austrians and all men, had to build their own camp and
set up operations in the quarry. Their daily lives were shaped by hunger, arbitrary treatment,
and violence.
In December 1939, the SS ordered the construction of a second concentration camp just a few
kilometres from Mauthausen. The Gusen branch camp officially went into operation in May
1940. After the outbreak of the war, people from across Europe were deported to Mauthausen,
which gradually developed into a system of several interconnected camps. During
this phase, Mauthausen and Gusen were the concentration camps with the harshest imprisonment
conditions and the highest mortality. Prisoners at the bottom of the camp hierarchy
had barely any chance of surviving for long. Those who were ill or ‘useless’ to the SS were in
constant danger of losing their lives. In 1941, the SS started to construct a gas chamber and
other installations at Mauthausen for the systematic murder of large groups of people.
During the second half of the war, the prisoners, who now included women for the first time,
were increasingly used as forced labourers in the arms industry. In order to accommodate the
prisoners where they worked, the SS established several subcamps. Newly-arrived prisoners
were transferred to these camps from the main camp. More and more, Mauthausen itself
became a camp where the sick and weak were sent to die.
Since the prisoners were now needed for their labour, living conditions improved for a short
time. From the end of 1943 onwards, inmates were also deployed in the construction of underground
factories, for example, those in Melk, Ebensee, and St. Georgen an der Gusen. The
murderous working conditions that prevailed at these sites soon led to a dramatic rise in the
number of victims.
Towards the end of the war, the Mauthausen concentration camp became the destination for
evacuations from camps near the front line. Tens of thousands of prisoners arrived on several
large transports. Overcrowding, lack of food, and rampant disease led to mass death among
the prisoners in the final months before liberation.
On 5 May 1945, the US Army reached Gusen and Mauthausen. Some prisoners were in such a
weakened state that many still died in the days and weeks after liberation. Of a total of around
190,000 people imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its subcamps over the
course of the course of seven years, at least 90,000 died.
Source: Presskit

Recreated scene of the first entry of American soldiers in Mauthausen, probably 7 May 1945;
Photo: US National Archives and Records Administration, Text: Mauthausen Memorial.
The Gusen branch camp
While planning for the Mauthausen concentration camp, the SS also acquired granite quarries
in Gusen, which lay a few kilometres away. The camp permanently housed the first prisoners
in April 1940. Originally conceived as a branch of the Mauthausen concentration camp, Gusen
had a capacity of around 6,000 inmates, making it larger than the main camp in Mauthausen.
At first, the SS transferred mainly Polish and Spanish prisoners from Mauthausen to Gusen.
Similar to Mauthausen, the majority of the prisoners initially served as forced labourers in the
quarries. In particular, in the years 1940–1942, the prisoners were killed systematically in their
thousands, or they died as a result of the murderous conditions. In 1941, the number of deaths
in the Gusen branch camp was several times as high as in Mauthausen.
As part of the growing use of concentration camp prisoners as forced labourers in the arms
industry, in 1943, two large arms companies moved parts of their production to the Gusen
concentration camp. Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, the largest arms company in the ‘Ostmark’, now
produces guns here, and the Messerschmitt GmbH company, a major aircraft manufacturer
in the German Reich, makes aeroplane parts. For prisoners assigned directly to arms production,
conditions improved, and for a time, mortality in the camp sank.
As early as late 1943, the SS started to use prisoners to dig tunnels in the surrounding mountainsides.
The intention was to provide bomb-proof sites for factories being put out of operation
by Allied air raids. At the start of 1944, the SS initiated a giant underground construction
project in St. Georgen an der Gusen, a few kilometres from the Gusen concentration camp:
the tunnel complex with the code number ‘B8’ and the codename ‘Bergkristall’. The purpose
of this project was to safeguard the production of Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter jets from air
raids. Up to 6,000 concentration camp prisoners worked on the construction site at any one
time. Construction continued around the clock, and, under massive time pressure, the prisoners
were subjected to constant abuse. Mass production of aircraft fuselages and parts went
into operation as early as autumn 1944. By the end of the war, around eight kilometres of
tunnel covering an area of around 50,000 square metres had been built.

To house the prisoners needed to build the tunnels and later work in aircraft production, the
Gusen concentration camp was extended in March 1944, and a new part of the camp, ‘Gusen
II’, was created. Many survivors remember the living conditions in this camp as the most catastrophic
of any they had experienced. At least 8,600 prisoners were murdered in the Gusen
II camp or died there as a result of the living and working conditions.
On 5 May 1945, American soldiers liberated the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps.
Around 25,000 prisoners were found alive in Gusen. And many, many dead. Around two thousand
more prisoners were so weakened by disease and malnutrition that they died immediately
after liberation. In total, more than half of the more than 71,000 prisoners from at least
27 different nations died in Gusen, including at least 13,000 Poles.
Between 1938 and 1945, around 190,000 people from more than 40 different nations were
imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp system and its satellite camps. At
least 93,000 people died there, including 25,308 from Poland, 15,056 from the former Soviet
Union, 8,753 from the German Reich, 7,592 from Hungary, 4,749 from Spain, 4,266 from
France, 4,247 from Italy, 3,840 from the former Yugoslavia, 2,938 from the Czech Republic,
and 1,346 from the Netherlands.
The Gusen I, II, and III camp complexes were largely destroyed in the years following liberation.
In the 1960s and 1970s, a housing estate was built on the site of Gusen I and Gusen II.
Individual surviving concentration camp buildings were and are still used commercially or for
residential purposes.
Thanks to the efforts of former prisoners, the remains of the crematorium were saved, and a
small memorial site was opened in Gusen in 1965. It was not until 1997 that it received the
status of an official memorial site of the Republic of Austria and was thus placed under legal
protection. In 2001, the so-called Committee of Persons was convened, and a visitor centre
was established in 2004. Today, there are only scattered architectural remains in the region,
which were placed under monument protection in 2016. In 2021 and 2022, significant plots
of land were purchased by the Republic of Austria. In March 2022, the official start for further
development of the Gusen Concentration Camp Memorial Site was finally announced. This is
an opportunity to create a new, truly European memorial site with the involvement of all
stakeholders.
Source: Presskit
Liberation Ceremony in Gusen in May 2017, Photo: Awareness Region.

Culture of remembrance and oral history
A culture of remembrance describes the collective knowledge of a society about its past. The
aim is to learn from the country's history for the future. Young people in particular benefit
from engaging with our history and remembering its sad and shocking aspects. We can learn
from this to make our society today more inclusive and peaceful, and to respect and protect
ourselves and our fellow human beings. The rights that we enjoy and no longer want to do
without were fought for by previous generations. We all contribute to the continuation of our
country and our history. Even if we have not seen certain historical periods of our society with
our own eyes, we still experience these events, which are still very present today, and see the
impact our history still has today. They are present because we continue to actively commemorate
and remember them. It is the duty of our generation.
The most important thing for our society is the confrontation and remembrance of the national
socialist era, probably the darkest chapter in European history. 27 January is the anniversary
on which we commemorate the Holocaust, i.e., the more than 6 million Jewish people
and the many other victims of systematic murder during the national socialist regime. 27 January
was chosen as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the
Holocaust because it was on this day in 1945 that Soviet troops succeeded in liberating Auschwitz,
the largest concentration and extermination camp. The genocide of the European Jewish
population occupies a special place on this day of remembrance due to its aim, the extermination
of the entire Jewish people, but other victim groups such as homosexuals, people with
disabilities, and Sinti and Roma are also commemorated on this day. We remember the Nazi
era and its terrible crimes to this day. Events such as these remain in our minds to this day and
bear witness to the repugnant treatment of marginalised groups. A culture of remembrance
means more than ritualised commemoration on a specific day. It also means actively engaging
with the past. Today, we can learn from this and stand up for these groups in order to include
them as part of society.
More recent examples of remembrance culture include Black History Month, which commemorates
the injustice that black people have experienced and continue to experience, or the
"19 February Hanau" initiative, which was founded after a terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist
on people with a history of migration in Germany and demands information and political
consequences for the victims. There is also a sign of remembrance in the form of a sculpture
in the centre of Vienna, where the five victims of the 2021 terrorist attack are commemorated.
Source: ? jugendstrategie.de | Erinnerungskultur

Critical contemporary witnessing
We essentially encounter contemporary witnesses in three functions:
1. Contemporary witnesses act as experts who have authentic knowledge of historical events
and are able to convey this knowledge.
2. Contemporary witnesses act as educators who derive from authentic experience the claim
to shape the historical image of those who live with them and those who live after them.
3. Contemporary witnesses appear as illustrators who, especially in the media, give colour to
the report through their original tone and appearance, confirm the research, and suggest
authenticity when presenting historical material.
Contemporary witnesses, as people in the know, as former actors or direct observers of important
events, with whom historians and social scientists interact through oral history and
interviews, are welcome assistants in the analysis and interpretation of historical material;
they help to clarify facts and are themselves suppliers of sources.
The contemporary witnesses in an educational capacity have their own demands: they need
an audience to process their experiences; they want to bear witness so that the suffering they
experienced – as victims of persecution under the Nazi regime, as concentration camp survivors,
as resisters against the unjust state – was not in vain. That is why these contemporary
witnesses go to schools, demand contact with young people, and want to present themselves.
Because teachers and others who shape the image of history are often convinced that eyewitness
testimony is the best way to impart historical knowledge, eyewitnesses are forced into a
role that ascribes omnipotence to them, which is understood as a mission and gladly accepted,
but which actually overtaxes them. If the survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp does
not concentrate on the main thing, namely on how he experienced, suffered, and survived the
horror as an individual, but if he derives from his experience the ability to authoritatively explain
and explain the intentions of national socialism and the systematics of terror, he has
failed in his task.
This is usually not recognised, not by the students, not by the teachers, who do not perceive
their role as moderators and interpreters, and not by the audience, who have been trained to
accept the eyewitnesses' original statements as unquestionable because they were there and
ultimately have to know. An emotional appeal emanates from contemporary witnesses, combined
with the claim to be authentic: They have experienced and suffered what historians
have only reconstructed and what listeners are supposed to empathise with. When the emotions
of the eyewitnesses clash with the rationality of the historians, who know the context,
motives, etc. of the events described by the eyewitnesses, a competitive relationship can arise
that leaves the uninvolved perplexed.
Ideally, contemporary witnesses and the historical profession complement each other. Eyewitnesses
play an important role as catalysts of mediation in the classroom, provided that the
teachers fulfil their own pedagogical function as moderators. The most problematic aspect is
certainly the appearance of contemporary witnesses in the media as illusionists. They are exposed
to the danger of instrumentalisation and manipulation (through image editing and the

creation of contexts that they cannot influence), and they are misused against their will and
against their knowledge if they are supposed to verify or falsify something that they cannot
do simply because of their year of birth, their coincidental presence in a place, or because of
their relationship with protagonists.
Without contemporary witnesses who remember the details, the history of national socialist
terror in the concentration camp cannot be written. This realisation is just as valid as the fact
that contemporary witnesses are not born educators who could explain national socialism
from its emergence to its downfall with all its consequences without further ado. And just as
a critical approach to the media is generally required, the media appearance of contemporary
witnesses should be viewed with particular attention. A competitive relationship between historians
and contemporary witnesses would be counterproductive because they are partners
in the project of shedding light on a difficult past.
Source: ? https://www.bpb.de/themen/holocaust/ravensbrueck/60718/zeitzeugen-historiker-und-ihr-publikum

Antisemitism
History of hostility towards Jews
Hardly any other group in human history has been blamed as often for crimes, epidemics, and
all kinds of misfortune as people of the Jewish faith. Hostility towards Jews can already be
found in pre-Christian times. At that time, Jewish people were primarily accused of self-love
and disregard for other religions. With the separation of Christianity from Judaism, the conflict
came to a head. A competition arose between the two religions for followers and recognition.
Christians, who saw themselves as "Verus Israel" ("True Israel"), accused the Jews of having
betrayed and crucified Jesus Christ. The accusation of being "Christ-killers" persists in part to
this day, but contradicts the historical sources and is called Christian anti-Judaism
(source: ? Welt Online).
The marginalisation of Jewish people was consistently continued in the Middle Ages. Numerous
laws were passed at church synods and councils, such as a ban on marriage between people
of the Jewish and Christian faiths, the requirement of external labelling to draw attention
to the Jewish faith, or the restriction of freedom of movement through separate Jewish quarters.
As the Jewish communities were poorly integrated into mediaeval society as a result of
these restrictions, it was easy to instrumentalise them as scapegoats. In the case of epidemics
that could not be explained, they were regarded as "well poisoners" and were persecuted.
The legend of ritual murder was also widespread. As enemies of Christianity, Jews are said to
have abducted and murdered Christian people from time to time in the Middle Ages in order
to misuse their blood for magical or medical purposes. Children in particular are said to have
been a favourite victim of these ritual acts. As a result of these accusations, people of the
Jewish faith were exposed to a constant threat to their existence: Jewish pogroms, in which
violence, including murder, was carried out against Jews, continued into the 20th century.
Source: ? demokratie-bw.de | Antisemitismus
Conspiracy myths
Conspiracy myths are attempts to explain misunderstood or incomprehensible phenomena
and to share them with like-minded people. Almost all conspiracy myths are overtly or structurally
antisemitic. Well-known conspiracy myths include the so-called "Protocols of the Elders
of Zion." But there are also antisemitic myths about the Islamist attacks of 11 September 2001,
or migration movements in Europe. What these myths have in common is that they can be
linked to very different ideological, political, and religious backgrounds.
A widespread conspiracy theory is also the alleged affinity of Jewish people to money, the
image of the mediaeval Jewish moneylender through to the control of the global financial
system by some Jewish families. In fact, Jewish people were excluded from the trades in the
12th and 13th centuries through the founding of guilds as Christian oath communities. However,
Jewish people were still free to practice professions such as medicine and trade, including
money exchange and money lending. Nevertheless, there was no imbalance in the distribution
between Jewish and Christian bankers in these professions. However, this did not rule
out the possibility that some Jewish families could also do big business in banking. In the early
modern period, Jewish merchants and bankers were often brought to princely courts as so-

called court factors and, during the confessional wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, became
valued neutral intermediaries who procured money for Catholic princes, e.g., the Habsburgs,
from Protestants, e.g., from the Netherlands (and vice versa).
Source: ? juedischegeschichte.de | Geld
Racist antisemitism
Racist antisemitism is a particular form of modern antisemitism: the "Jewish race" was seen
as a threat to the "Aryan race" at the top of the hierarchy. The physical and character traits
ascribed to the Jews were attributed to the alleged "race." This meant that they were considered
unchangeable, so converting to Christianity was no longer a way of escaping antisemitic
persecution. Racist antisemitism was at the core of national socialist ideology. The mass murder
was expected to bring nothing less than salvation, a contradiction-free identity for the
community in which all would finally be well.
New or secondary antisemitism
Although critical reflection on antisemitism slowly became established after 1945, new variations
developed in Germany during this period, such as guilt-defence antisemitism or secondary
antisemitism. The forms in which these variants of antisemitism are expressed range from
Holocaust denial and various forms of historical relativisation to the projection of guilt onto
Jewish people, which extends to perpetrator-victim reversal. Demands for a line to be drawn
or for supposed "normality" in debates about the culture of remembrance are also frequently
elements of this form of antisemitism.
Israel-related antisemitism, or antizionism
Another form of antisemitism is Israel-related antisemitism. This is hostility towards Jewish
people that is legitimised by Israeli policy. In debates about Israel-related antisemitism, the
following question often arises at some point: Is all criticism of Israel's policies and the state
of Israel antisemitic? Nathan Sharansky's so-called "three D test" can help clarify this question:
The "three Ds" stand for demonisation, delegitimisation, and double standards. Accordingly,
statements about Israel are potentially antisemitic if they are aimed at demonising the state,
if they delegitimise the state and question its right to exist, or if double standards are applied
when it comes to assessing Israeli policy.
Source: ? demokratie-bw.de | Antisemitismus
Islamic antisemitism
Antisemitism is a worldwide phenomenon. Antisemitic and antizionist views are particularly
widespread in Islamic countries in the Middle East and are often used and reinforced by politicians
in the conflict with the state of Israel. Some of the prejudices have been adopted from
Western antisemitism, while fundamentalist groups have also radicalised existing anti-Jewish
tendencies within Islam.
Source: ? demokratiewebstatt.at | Antisemitismus heute

Scapegoat
A scapegoat is someone who has to atone for something that others have done. In other
words, someone who is sacrificed by proxy. This sacrifice can consist of anything from killing,
as in the original human sacrifices, to social ostracisation in today's shitstorms. The scapegoat
is often innocent, but that doesn't have to be the case. It often comes from the margins of
society, and preferably from the bottom. According to the French anthropologist René Girard,
scapegoats serve to contain and pacify rivalries and violence. They have the power to create
society. Even today. Girard describes how collective madness arises. It is about group-dynamic
processes in which everyone's opinion suddenly tilts in one direction. This is how persecution
arises. Those who oppose it are themselves persecuted.
Source: ? tagblatt.ch | Today's human sacrifices and why the scapegoat is resurgent in the
digital age (in German)
Extremism and antisemitism
Antisemitism is part of many extremist worldviews. They fuel antisemitic sentiment, and antisemitic
conspiracy theories are particularly common among extremist groups. Conspiracy
theories are popular on the internet and social media. This is often associated with radicalisation,
which is not limited to verbal statements but can also lead to violent attacks. Hatred
against Jewish people is shown both openly through verbal and violent actions, as well as being
conveyed in subliminal comments and messages. Right-wing extremist views are closely
linked to national socialist ideas. The Nazi era is glorified, and Nazi crimes are trivialised or
denied. Relativistic comparisons and falsifying or denying facts are part of their antisemitic
views.
Laws against incitement and denial of the Holocaust in Austria
- Denying or trivialising the Holocaust is a serious criminal offence in Austria. Incitement to
hatred or violence is also prohibited.
- Prohibition Act: Anyone who publicly denies, trivialises, advocates for, or attempts to justify
the national socialist genocide or other national socialist crimes against humanity is
liable to prosecution.
- Criminal offence of incitement to hatred: Anyone who incites violence against people of a
certain origin or religion or stirs up hatred against them is committing incitement to hatred,
an offence punishable by fines or imprisonment. If such statements lead to acts of
violence, there is also a risk of imprisonment.
Source: ? demokratiewebstatt.at | Antisemitismus heute

Poll on antisemitism today in Europe
Antisemitic stereotypes are alive and well in Europe, while the memory of the Holocaust is
starting to fade, a sweeping survey by CNN from 2018 reveals. More than a quarter of Europeans
polled believe Jews have too much influence in business and finance. Nearly one in four
said Jews have too much influence in conflict and wars across the world. One in five said they
have too much influence in the media, and the same number believe they have too much
influence in politics.
Meanwhile, a third of Europeans in the poll said they knew just a little or nothing at all about
the Holocaust, the mass murder of some six million Jews in lands controlled by Adolf Hitler’s
Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s.
Those are among the key findings of a survey carried out by pollster ComRes for CNN. The
CNN/ComRes poll interviewed more than 7,000 people across Europe, with more than 1,000
respondents each in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden.
About one European in 20 of the countries CNN surveyed has never heard of the Holocaust,
even though it’s less than 80 years since the end of World War II, and there are still tens of
thousands of Holocaust survivors alive today. Lack of Holocaust knowledge is particularly striking
among young people in France. One out of five people there between the ages of 18 and
34 said they’d never heard of it. In Austria, the country where Hitler was born, 12 % of young
people said they had never heard of the Holocaust. With four out of 10 adults, Austria also
had the highest number of people in the survey saying they knew “just a little” about the
Holocaust. Across Europe, half of respondents said they know “a fair amount” about the Holocaust,
while only one out of five people said they know “a great deal.”
But Europeans do believe it is important to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Twothirds
of Europeans said that commemorating the Holocaust helps ensure that such atrocities
will never happen again. That figure rises to 80 % in Poland, where the Nazis established
Auschwitz, the deadliest concentration camp of all. Half of Europeans said commemorating
the Holocaust helps fight antisemitism today. But at the same time, a third of Europeans said
that Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. The same number disagreed,
and nearly a third of respondents expressed no opinion.
Attitudes sharpened when it came to the relationship between the Holocaust, Israel, Jews,
and antisemitism. A slight but solid majority of Europeans (54 %) said Israel has the right to
exist as a Jewish state, with the figure rising to two-thirds in Poland. A third of survey respondents
believe that criticism of Israel tends to be motivated by antisemitism, while only one in
five said it does not. However, a third of the people CNN surveyed said that Israel uses the
Holocaust to justify its actions, with half the respondents in Poland agreeing. Only one in five
disagreed. A third of Europeans said supporters of Israel use accusations of antisemitism to
shut down criticism of Israel, while only one in 10 said that was not true.
A third of Europeans said commemorating the Holocaust distracts from other atrocities today,
with higher-than-average numbers of Germans, Austrians, Poles, and Hungarians stating that.
And while many people said antisemitism is a growing problem in their countries – to the
extent that 40 % said Jews were at risk of racist violence in their countries and half said their

governments should do more to fight anti-Semitism – substantial minorities blamed Israel or
Jews themselves for antisemitism. More than a quarter of respondents (28 %) said most antisemitism
in their countries was a response to the actions of the state of Israel. And nearly one
in five (18 %) said antisemitism in their countries was a response to the everyday behaviour
of Jewish people.
Few people said they personally have an unfavourable attitude towards Jews. Across the
seven countries in the survey, one in 10 people said they did, although the figure rises to 15
% in Poland and 19 % in Hungary.
In every country polled except Hungary, significantly more people said they had a favourable
opinion of Jews than an unfavourable one. (In Hungary, favourable topped unfavourable by
21 % to 19 %, with the rest saying they had neither a favourable nor an unfavourable view.
The poll also put a spotlight on European attitudes towards other minorities. While 10 % of
Europeans admitted they had unfavourable views of Jews, 16 % said they had negative views
of LGBT+ people, 36 % said they had unfavourable views of immigrants, 37 % said that about
Muslims, and 39 % said it of Romani people.
But while the number of Europeans openly admitting negative attitudes towards Jews was
relatively low, questions about whether traditional antisemitic stereotypes still resonate
across the continent found clear evidence that they do. In Poland and Hungary, about four out
of 10 people said Jews have too much influence in business and finance around the world.
Roughly one out of three people there said Jews were too influential in political affairs around
the world, and more than a quarter of Poles and Hungarians said they had too much influence
on the media. A third of Austrians said Jews have too much influence in finance, while a quarter
of French and German respondents said so. About one in five people in all three countries
said Jews had too much influence in the media, and a quarter said they had too much influence
on wars and conflicts.
The belief in Jewish power runs in parallel with enormous overestimations of the number of
Jews in the world. About two-thirds of the respondents in the survey guessed too high when
asked what percentage of the world is Jewish, and similar numbers got the answer wrong for
their own countries. A quarter of Hungarians estimated that the world is more than 20 % Jewish,
and a fifth of British and Polish respondents said so. They were off by a factor of 100.
About 0.2 % of the world’s population is Jewish, according to the Pew Research Centre’s Global
Religious Landscape study.
Four out of ten respondents in the survey thought their own countries were between 3 % and
10 % Jewish. In fact, Israel is the only country in the world where more than 2 % of the population
is Jewish. The overestimates came even as majorities or near-majorities in every country
CNN polled said they were not aware of ever having met a Jewish person. Two-thirds of Germans,
Austrians, and Poles said they didn’t think they had ever socialised with a Jew, while
about half of people in Britain, France, Hungary, and Sweden said the same.
Source: ? CNN | Antisemitism poll 2018