Mutig Leben

It is not always easy to retain confidence in the face of shameless policies of hatred, lies and disregard for human dignity, in the face of the undermining of the separation of powers and civil democracy and in the face of the proliferatio of autocratic rule and the glorification of might being right. On the basis of his experiences, Imre Kertész, who survived both Auschwitz and Buchenwald and was honoured with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, regarded man-made evil as the normal state of history. By contrast, he found the man-made benevolence that resisted this despite everything remarkable and precious. How we can live and conduct ourselves bravely, humanely and with an awareness of history in times when the clock is being turned back and both the bitter and the inspiring lessons of the 20th century are being swept aside is the theme of this series of talks. The speakers are people who have confronted inhumanity and the destruction of democracy in a variety of contexts and continue to do so.

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I. CONVERSATION WITH PROF. DR. OMRI BOEHM AND JENS-CHRISTIAN WAGNER

 Sun 24.8. 18 Uhr - Bauhaus-Universität, Maurice-Halbwachs-Auditorium
»Experiences of dehumanisation and the concept of human dignity«

PROF. DR. OMRI BOEHM
Professor Omri Boehm, Israeli-German philosopher at the New School of Social Research, New York, pioneer of a binational solution to the Middle East conflict, author of “Radical Universalism”, regular commentator in the international media.

JENS-CHRISTIAN WAGNER
Historian and former Executive Director of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation, since 2020 Director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation and Professor of History in the Media and in Public at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.

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II. CONVERSATION WITH ANDREJ IVANJI AND CLAUDIA KRAFT

Fri 29.8. 18 Uhr - Museum Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus
»There is another way: the unanticipated mass protest in favour of democracy in Serbia«

ANDREJ IVANJI
Serbian journalist, foreign affairs editor and Balkan correspondent, reporting regularly for German language media on social and geopolitical tensions in Southeast Europe, son of the Holocaust survivor Ivan Ivanji.

CLAUDIA KRAFT
Historian, Professor at the University of Vienna, speaker for the research platform “Transformations and Eastern Europe”, expert in state socialism, gender history and transnational legal history.

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III. CONVERSATION WITH HANNO LOEWY AND EVA MENASSE

Tue 2.9. 18 Uhr - Museum Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus
»Confronting both genuine antisemitism and false accusations of antisemitism«

HANNO LOEWY
Literary and film scholar, exhibition maker, journalist, founding Director of the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt am Main, since 2004 Director of the Jewish Museum in Hohenems, expert in the culture of remembrance and the Jewish diaspora, active critic of antisemitism and historical revisionism.

EVA MENASSE
Austrian novelist and essayist, former journalist, co-founder and until 2024 spokesperson for PEN Berlin, active in sociopolitical debates around e. g. freedom of speech and the culture of memory.

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IV. CONVERSATION WITH ASAL DARDAN AND BURAK YILMAZ

Thu 4.9. 18 Uhr - Museum Zwangsarbeit im Nationalsozialismus
»The present incarnation of the Nazi past – new alliances to combat this in an immigrant society”«

ASAL DARDAN
Iranian-German writer and essayist, in her works reflects on migration, belonging and the culture of memory, winner of the Caroline Schlegel Prize, writes for Zeit Online, FAZ and Die Presse.

BURAK YILMAZ
Teacher, writer, initiator of the project “Young Muslims in Auschwitz”, advocates against antisemitism with theatre works and educational projects, author of “A Matter of Honour. Fighting
Antisemitism”, awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and the Julius Hirsch Prize.