About Us
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (Gedenkdienst)

The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (Gedenkdienst) is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service. Its participants serve at major Holocaust institutions.

The Gedenkdienst program was founded by Dr. Andreas Maislinger, a political scientist from Innsbruck (Tyrol, Austria) who adopted the idea from the German Action for Reconciliation (Aktion Suehnezeichen). Maislinger himself had worked as a volunteer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, where the idea of the Gedenkdienst program was born.

In 1991 the required legislation was enacted by the Austrian Government and Andreas Maislinger began organizing what became known as the Gedenkdienst program, an independent, though largely government-funded foundation. The intent of the Gedenkdienst program is to recognize Austria's part of the
collective responsibility for the Holocaust and the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that it "never again" happens (quote from the speech of the former Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky, Jerusalem, June 1993).

The Austrian Gedenkdienst program is a unique international network that provides assistance to Holocaust-related archives and museums. Since 1992 there have been about 150 Gedenkdienst interns, mostly in their 20s, working to study and preserve Holocaust history in lieu of military service back home.

The Austrian Association for Service Abroad (auslandsdienst.at) is the main body of the organization and authorized by the Austrian Government to send Gedenkdienst interns to partner organizations worldwide.