#Jewish initiater free#

There is something comforting about not allowing these people to be forgotten, about hearing their names again and about the fact that we are still talking about them despite their having long ceased to be among us. It is indeed a shock, but is there not also something comforting about “letting them live on” in this manner?ĭefinitely. After all, it comes as a much greater shock if one is able to really identify with a person. Reading out their names once a year is important and a good thing, but I believe it is even more crucial actually to engage with the genocide. The moment we stop talking about them, they will really be dead. Nonetheless, they should never forget what happened in the past and they should not forget the people who were killed. Today we are dealing with a new German society, with generations for whom the Shoah no longer has any direct relevance.

#Jewish initiater free#

I want young people to pay tribute to the victims not only in the typical dry way that usually happens but to encourage them to give free rein to their thoughts. What I want to do is create a new culture of memory. “Creating a new culture of memory” Can your approach also be regarded as a break with “conventional” forms of commemoration?Ībsolutely. I believe it is important for young people in particular to engage intensively with the biographies of the victims as this is the only way in which they will really come closer to the various characters rather than simply observing them from the outside. We need a new way of ensuring greater identification. The voices of those who are able to report on the crimes from their own experience are becoming ever weaker. His answer was that we should continue to tell their story.

In it, he asked what the Holocaust victims would want us to do today. Scene from “Rozsika” | © Tobias Dahmen/Avitall GerstetterIt was a speech given by former Israeli president Shimon Peres in Berlin that gave me the idea for We will call out your name. What you are doing is something entirely different – you are creating a work of fiction. When we talk about researching and critically analysing the past, we generally mean examining witness accounts or uncovering historical facts. I go with them through the years – and in the process they grow up, leave school and learn a profession. They in turn tell me about what their life was like back when they were young. Characters like Rozsika and her friend come to me – symbolically speaking – across a bridge I take them by the hand and show them how I live today. Serving as an intermediary from the present day, a living person, I make it possible for readers to access the story directly. You are currently developing the story for a graphic novel and have invited young people to contribute to it. Those are precisely the questions which the project raises and which I often ask myself: what would have become of the people who were not fortunate enough to survive the Holocaust? And what would their lives have been like if the Holocaust had never even happened? If I were to answer these questions now with respect to Rozsika, however, I would be anticipating what is yet to come, as the story-tellers have not yet worked out what is to become of this girl who was killed in Auschwitz at the age of seven. Ms Gerstetter, if your great-aunt Rozsika were still alive today, where would she be right now and what would she be doing? An interview with Avitall Gerstetter, a cantor for the Jewish Community of Berlin and the initiator of the project “We will call out your name”. Scene from “Rozsika” | Photo (detail): © Tobias Dahmen/AvitallĪ Jewish girl who was killed in the Holocaust lives on in a graphic novel, teenagers helping to write the continuation of her story.