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The 4th May is Memorial Day in the Netherlands. Amongst many acts, the country joins together for two minutes of silent contemplation and remembrance. This short film by Simone Boersma reminds us of why we should never forget the past, and should always be alert to the dangers of the present. This is the core ethos of Footsteps. Please join us and take two minutes of silence at the 4th of May at 20:00.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1947637541

Yesterday evening we were at the memorial plaque unveiling in Neuweiler-Black Forrest, Calw Region-South Germany. The first memorial plaque in the whole Calw region, by the way. Ernest Kolman (*1926) experienced the years before and during the third Reich himself. As a child he often visited his uncle Dr. Eugen Marx in Neuweiler, together with his sister Margit and the nanny Anna. In 1939, aged 12, he was brought to safety alone with a child transport to England. He now lives near london and has been an honorary citizen of his home town Wesel on the Lower Rhine region since 2016. Since 1988 Ernest Kolmanal's contemporary witnesses have been committed to understanding, reconciliation and memory. At the end of September 2016 he came to Calw County for a week of commemoration with witness talks and lectures. This was the first time that the fate of the family of the Jewish doctor Dr. Eugen Marx in Neuweiler was remembered. Ernest's sister Margit and his parents Martin & Frieda Kohlmann, née Marx, were deported to a concentration camp in 1941. The sister survived several Nazi concentration camps until she was liberated by the English in 1945. Ernest´s Parents were murdered as early as 1941. Bio of Ernest Kolman: http://www.kindertransporte-nrw.eu/kolman/kolman_bio_1_e.htmlSome high-ranking personalities from church and district were guests and gave their speeches, all with the same Tenor in sum "Never again"... . But also the descendants of Dr. Marx, specially arrived from the USA and England. Ernest Kolman 92 years old (the only nephew of Dr. Marx) and his son Timothy Kolman. He told great and amusing anecdotes of his uncle but also the inhuman part was embedded. When one hears such contemporary witnesses, the question automatically comes to "why"...but there will never be an answer to this that one can be satisfied with. It was a great and well prepared event in reasonably good weather. Also the symbolism of this event, but more important than ever especially in today's society, where anti-Semitism exclusion and xenophobia have become acceptable again. To learn out of the past in the present, to change the future sustainably. People like the history teacher from Nagold, Gabriel Stängle, made this event possible through their commitment and thus pay tribute to the memory of the victims of Nazi socialism in our region and the brutal way they and and inhuman way in which they were excluded from society. We should never again allow such crimes to happen in the name of humanity and society.

If you are interested in the book "The Commander and the Bible Student" (Der Kommandant und die Bibelforscherin)) or the film "The Commander's Cook" (Die Köchin des Kommandanten), this link will take you to the WWW.MARCHIVUM.DE where you can order both. Currently only available in German language.

UPCOMING:A Kinship of Purpose. Written by: Simon Bell and Rainer Hoss.

Premiere in Novi Sad-Serbia

Marco De FrancescoArtist & Designer

04/04/2018

The grandson of the commandant of the Auschwitz camp, Rainer Höss, will come to Hayange and Serémange-Erzange on Wednesday to testify to this heavy legacy and his commitment against racism and anti-Semitism.Yes, my family had a good life in Auschwitz... "That's just one of many sentences Rainer Höss discovers in his grandfather's memoirs. Born in 1965, Rainer is the grandson of Rudolf Höss, commander of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from 1940 to 1944, where more than one million men, women and children were exterminated by the Nazis.Rainer Höss never knew his grandfather. Faced with the silence of his father, a violent man, and his grandmother who remained faithful to Nazi ideology, it was only as a teenager that he discovered this terrible reality. It took me years to appreciate the horror of my grandfather's memories," he says.Once he is an adult, with all ties severed with his family, he will never cease to learn about this man who abhors him and what was hidden from him as a child. Rainer Höss then became actively involved in the duty to remember, against racism and anti-Semitism."There is something worse than evil itself, indifference to evil" (Elie Wiesel)In 2016, worried about the rise of extreme right-wing parties in Europe, Rainer Höss published L'Héritage du commandant (The Heritage of the Commander) in which he recounted his grandfather's itinerary.Invited to Hayange by the Popular University (Upop) of the Fensch, this Wednesday, he will testify to this heavy family heritage but also to how the Nazi ideology hid in some families. Killers exist in power in the depths of each of us, we can simply consider ourselves lucky that no one comes to take them out of their lair," quotes Rainer Höss at the end of his book."Unfortunately, current events reinforce the importance of this type of testimony," says Marc Olénine, head of the Upop. Rainer Höss will also be the guest of two classes at the Maryse-Bastié vocational school.