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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.
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