»Is that a human being?«
Against forgetting

There is an official politics of remembrance that calls up the time of National Socialism, there is the dunning call of »Never again« - but this is becoming more and more a ritual, without concrete knowledge, without dense description, without voices that could convey what the Shoah actually meant. Auschwitz threatens to become a mere cipher, without the understanding of all the mechanisms of dehumanisation, of annihilation, that constituted it. Thus, neither the continuities nor the discontinuities to today's forms of racism and anti-Semitism become recognisable. In contrast, this evening of texts by survivors aims to show the diversity of voices that experienced and described the horrors of the camps. Their accounts bear witness to the violence and the ordeal, to resistance, friendship and the ethics of remembering.

With texts from Primo Levi • Jean Améry • Ruth Klüger • Charlotte Delbo • Imre Kertész • Jorge Semprún u.a. | Moderation: Gabriele von Arnim