In the words of the Nazis

2005-01-24 08:34

Berlin - The posters in the Berlin underground station are unadorned by photographs. Just a few stark words are proving effective in the fight to ensure Germany never forgets the horrors of the Nazis.

"Anyone with a hereditary disease can be rendered infertile (sterilised) if the results of medical studies show that person's descendants are likely to have physical or mental defects," the wording on the poster reads.

It comes from a law introduced by the Nazis in July 1933, just six months after Adolf Hitler came to power.

The posters are part of a new campaign launched by the German website www.shoa.de for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp on January 27.

The campaign is called Gegen das Vergessen which roughly translates as "So it is not forgotten".

More than 1 800 posters, 20 000 postcards and 12 500 leaflets have been published. They will be distributed to schools across Germany, although the posters will only be on show in the Berlin surburban train network.

Shoa.de, created in 1995, aims to avoid resorting to graphic photographs.

"Our aim is not to shock, but to educate," said the head of the organisation, Stefan Mannes.

"We ruled out using photos because many have been used in other campaigns by other organisations."

Six different posters are on show. One is entirely blank to symbolise the danger of the Nazis' acts slipping from the collective memory, while five deal with the main themes of the Third Reich: the Holocaust, the massive destruction of World War 2, euthanasia and Hitler's brutal repression of intellectuals and artists.

Another poster bears the words of the German commander during the siege of Leningrad, the Russian city now known as Saint Petersburg.

The text reads: "The Führer has decided to wipe the city of Leningrad from the face of the earth. We have no interest in keeping even a small part of the population alive." p>Mannes said a great amount of thought went into choosing the slogans.

"We didn't want any quotes from Hitler or Goebbels, we wanted the words of the people who were actually there. These phrases should remain etched on your memory."

Such as the words spoken by Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz camp commander: "I commanded Auschwitz until December 1, 1943, and I estimate that at least 2.5 million victims were gassed or burned and at least another half a million died of hunger and illness."

The death toll from Auschwitz has since been revised to around 1.1 million.

One survivor from the camp, Henryk Mendelbaum, is the subject of another poster.

"When we opened up the gas chambers, we saw dead bodies still standing. They were side by side and their heads were touching."

Mannes says that even though "the Holocaust is deeply rooted in the conscience and the memory of Germans", the campaign is necessary "because we need to remember the past in order to shape the future".

- AFP