News

 n commemoration of National Socialist injustice, September 1, 1939, marks a memorable day in several respects:

With the invasion of Poland on this very day 84 years ago, World War II began – and with it a systematic, racially motivated war of extermination against the Polish civilian population. More than one fifth of the overall population died, including more than three million Polish Jews and tens of thousands of Sinti and Roma. Even now, their stories have no permanent anchor in our culture of remembrance. The project funded in the Education Agenda NS-Injustice "Fates from Poland: 1939 to 1945. Remembering Locally & Digitally" is designed to change this, as you can see in this edition of our Pearl Finder section.

Tomorrow also commemorates the NS "euthanasia" crimes throughout Europe, to which approximately 300,000 people fell victim: Already in the spring of 1939, a group led by Philipp Bouhler, the director of Hitler`s Chancellery as well as Karl Brandt, Hitler`s personal physician, began secretly planning the murder of handicapped children and psychiatric patients. Under the code name "Aktion T4" this extermination program was legitimized by a letter of authorization from Hitler in October 1939, backdated to the day the war began on September 1, 1939.

In the "Aktion T4" program the National Socialists killed more than 70,000 people – because they were classified as "unworthy of life" on account of their physical, mental or psychological illnesses or social stigmatization. Sophie Ziegler writes about them, amongst others, in her report on two funded art projects. This article is already available on our website as a preview of our magazine of the Education Agenda NS-Injustice that will be published on September 12.

Stay in touch, inform and engage with us.

Dr. Andrea Despot
Chief Executive Officer of the EVZ Foundation

The goal of the EVZ Foundation, with which we as an association cooperate, is to keep alive the memory of National Socialist persecution and to work for human rights and international understanding. Against the background of its founding history, the EVZ Foundation is particularly active in Central and Eastern Europe, Israel and Germany.