ÜA heated argument has broken out in Oranienburg, Brandenburg, over a new street name near the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial site. The naming of a street after Gisela Gneist, who was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen after the war, in a residential area on the site of the former Zeppelin concentration camp was a “provocation” and should “be reconsidered by the city councillors”. That said the remembrance officer of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia, Marion Gardei.
Gisela Gneist (1930-2007) was imprisoned from 1946 to 1950 in the Soviet “special camp” Sachsenhausen, which operated on the site of the previous Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg. There and in several other special camps, the Russians held Nazi suspects, but also completely innocent people, for years under inhumane conditions without a trial. Many died of starvation, cold, disease and exhaustion.
According to a historical report, Gisela Gneist, who was interned at the age of sixteen, later encountered historians and memorial site directors “in a polemical and confrontational manner”, “sometimes mixed with anti-Semitic undertones and personal defamation”. At the same time, she said, she had not shown any reservations about right-wing extremist positions.
Protest by churches and the Central Council of Jews
The memorial site, the Central Council of Jews and the Church had previously expressed reservations and rejection of the naming after her. “It would be a good sign for society to heed the objections,” said memorial officer Gardei. “A different name should be chosen here for a street name that is not linked to the fate of the internees in the former Soviet special camp Sachsenhausen after 1945.” A few days ago, the President of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, also renounced the hitherto planned name required.
The naming of the street in a new development area on a former site of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was decided by the city council in 2020. The Brandenburg Memorials Foundation and the International Sachsenhausen Committee, among others, had protested against this. In February, the topic should come up again on the agenda of the city council meeting.
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