The City of Leipzig would like to invite all those interested to the memorial site Abtnaundorf (Theklaer Straße / Heiterblickstraße) on 27 January again. The memorial service begins at 11:00 am
The city provides free buses that start at 10:30 am at the New Town Hall (Rathausvorplatz) for the drive to Abtnaundorf and back.
At the site of the memorial service, in 18 April 1945, a barracks of the former external command of the Buchenwald concentration camp was set on fire with 300 prisoners by Gestapo, SS and the Volkssturm. More than 80 prisoners died there or later died of serious injuries. Since 1985 a stone obelisk as served as a memorial for the atrocity, which was included in the documents of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal as the "Massacre of Abtnaundorf"; since 2018 it has been commemorated by an installation by the Leipzig artist Harald Alff.
Programme
Following speeches by the Mayor Burkhard Jung as well as Imke and Gesine Oltmann, relatives of Gertrud Oltmann who was murdered by the National Socialists, and prayers, flowers will be laid at the memorial site accompanied by a moment of silence. The Diakonie am Thonberg choir "ThonKunst" will provide for the musical accompaniment at the event.
At the New Town Hall, Mayor Burkhard Jung, together with representatives of the City Council, will lay wreaths in front of the memorial plaque in the Upper Wandelhalle for the murdered Municipal Councillors. At 12:30 pm, the film "Riebeckstr. 63" by the Children and Youth Culture Workshop JOJO will be shown in the lower Wandelhalle. It deals with the history of the building complex under National Socialism. Prof. Dr. med. Steffi G. Riedel-Heller, University of Leipzig, will then provide an introduction to the exhibition "Captured, Persecuted, Destroyed: Sick and Disabled People under National Socialism" by the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN). The show will be open until 5 February 2019 during the opening hours of the New Town Hall (Monday to Thursday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm and Friday from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm).
A symposium on European commemoration of and reflection on "euthanasia" crimes will be held in the Council Chamber from 2:30 to 6:30 pm.