Gedenkdienst

Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
Purpose	Holocaust Memorial
Founder and Chairman	Andreas Maislinger
	Andreas Maislinger (left) with Branko Lustig (right)
Office	Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria
Foundation	1992, Innsbruck

The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (AHMS) is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service / alternative service founded in 1992. Since 1998 it is part of the Austrian Service Abroad. AHMS representatives serve at major Holocaust memorial institutions in 23 countries worldwide.

Implementation

First young Austrian started in Auschwitz on September 1, 1992

The AHMS was founded by Andreas Maislinger, a political scientist from Innsbruck (Tirol, Austria) who adopted the idea from the German Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (Aktion Suehnezeichen/Friedensdienste). Maislinger himself had worked as a volunteer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in 1980/1981, where the idea of the program was born.

After more than 10 years of struggling with Austrian politicians and dozens of newspaper articles of Andreas Maislinger the required legislation was enacted by the Austrian Government in 1991 and Maislinger began organizing what became known as the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service, an independent, though largely government-funded foundation. The intent of the AHMS is to recognize Austria's part of the collective responsibility for the Holocaust and the responsibility of each one of us to ensure that it "never again" happens (quote from a speech by then Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky, Jerusalem, June 1993).

Structure and Development

The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service is a unique international network that provides assistance to Holocaust-related archives and museums.

In 1998 Andreas Maislinger and Andreas Hörtnagl established the Austrian Service Abroad. Within this new umbrella organization, which is authorized by the Austrian Government to send the Austrian interns to partner organizations worldwide, the Austrian Social Service and Austrian Peace Service were added to the Holocaust Memorial Service.

Since 1992 there have been sent more than 500 AHMS interns, mostly in their 20s, either working to study and preserve Holocaust history in lieu of military service back home.

In October and November 2009 Andreas Maislinger made a 3-week lecturing and promoting tour through Canada and the United States.

Partner organizations

Casa Stefan Zweig

Jasenovac concentration camp

Centre de la mémoire d'Oradour

Amicale de Mauthausen

Jewish Museum Berlin

Yad Vashem in Israel

Synagogue next to Auschwitz Jewish Center

Centre For Jewish Culture in Kraków

Simon Wiesenthal Center

Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond

Holocaust Memorial Center in Detroit

Argentina

• • Buenos Aires – Asociación Filantrópica Israelita (AFI) – Hogar Adolfo Hirsch (San Miguel)
  • Buenos Aires – Fundación Memoria del Holocausto

Australia

• Melbourne - Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre
• Melbourne - Jewish Museum of Australia

Austria

• Braunau am Inn - House of Responsibility

Belgium

• Brussles – La Mémoire d'Auschwitz

Brazil

• Petrópolis - Casa Stefan Zweig

Bulgaria

• Sofia - Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria "Shalom"

Canada

• Montreal - Holocaust Memorial Centre
• Montreal - Kleinmann Family Foundation

China

• Harbin - Harbin Jewish Research Center (planned)
• Shanghai - Center of Jewish Studies

Croatia

• Jasenovac - Jasenovac concentration camp

Czech Republic

• Prague - Jewish Community of Prague
• Prague – Terezín Initiative
• Terezín – Památník Terezín

France

• Oradour - Centre de la Mémoire d'Oradour
• Paris - Amicale de Mauthausen
• Paris - La Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation
• Paris – Maison de la Culture Yiddish / Bibliothèque Medem

Germany

• Berlin - Jewish Museum Berlin
• Berlin - Ecumenical Memorial Centre Plötzensee "Christians and Resistance"
• Moringen - Concentration Camp Memorial at Torhaus Moringen
• Munich - Jewish Museum Munich

Great Britain

• London - Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library
• London - The National Yad Vashem Charitable Trust

Hungary

• Budapest - European Roma Rights Centre
• Budapest – Holocaust Documentation Center and Memorial Collection Public Foundation

Israel

• Jerusalem - Yad Vashem
• Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot - Ghetto Fighters' House
• Tel Aviv – Anita Mueller Cohen Elternheim

Italy

• Como - Istituto di Storia Contemporanea "Pier Amato Perretta"(ISC)
• Milan - Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea
• Marzabotto - Fondazione Scuola Di Pace Di Monte Sole - Peace School Foundation of Monte Sole
• Prato - Museo della Deportazione

Lithuania

• Vilnius – Jewish Museum

Netherlands

• Amsterdam - United

Norway

• Oslo - Jewish Community

Poland

• Oświęcim - Auschwitz Jewish Center
• Oświęcim – IJBS Auschwitz
• Oświęcim – Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Kraków - Judaica Foundation - Center For Jewish Culture
• Kraków - Galicia Jewish Museum
• Warsaw - Jewish Museum Warsaw
• Warsaw – Jewish Historical Institute
• Wroclaw - planned
• Stutthof – Stutthof concentration camp
• Goczalków – Gross-Rosen concentration camp
• Lublin – Majdanek concentration camp

Russia

• Moscow - Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center

Slovenia

• Ljubljana

Sweden

• Uppsala - Uppsala Programme for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
• Stockholm - Forum för levande historia

Turkey

• Istanbul - Jewish Museum Istanbul

Ukraine

• Kiew - Jewish Foundation of Ukraine (JFU)

United States

• Chicago - Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
• Detroit - Holocaust Memorial Center
• Houston - Holocaust Museum Houston
• Los Angeles - Simon Wiesenthal Center
• Los Angeles - Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
• Los Angeles - USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
• New Orleans - National World War II Museum (planned)
• New York - Museum of Jewish Heritage
• New York - Anti Defamation League
• New York - American Jewish Committee
• Reno - Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Peace Studies
• Richmond - Virginia Holocaust Museum
• San Francisco - Holocaust Center of Northern California
• St. Petersburg - The Florida Holocaust Museum

Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award

Andreas Maislinger also initiated the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA), rewarding people who actively contribute to the remembrance of the Holocaust. On October 17, 2006 the Chinese historian Pan Guang was awarded the first AHMA prize. Further recipients were the Brazilian journalist Alberto Dines and French Robert Hébras, who was one of only six people, who survived the Massacre of Oradour

Honoring

In 2005 the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Andreas Maislinger received the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria in Silver from the president of Austria, Heinz Fischer, and the Medal of Merit of the state of Tirol from Herwig van Staa and Luis Durnwalder.

On November 8, 2009 Maislinger was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award for "his 10 year fight to obtain official recognition of alternative, philanthropic service" at the Annual Dinner of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust together with Holocaust survivor and producer of Schindlers List Branko Lustig.

See also

• Andreas Maislinger
• Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award
• Austrian Peace Service
• Austrian Service Abroad
• Austrian Social Service
• House of Responsibility
• Paper Clips Project

External links

• http://www.gedenkdienst.org
• Austrian Holocaust Memorial Servants
• http://www.gedenkdienst.info
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Harald Edinger from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum