Grüneberg am 13. April 2024

14.05.2024

One of the celebrations included in this year's official program of the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the KL Ravensbrück concentration camp was the commemoration on April 13, 2024 in Grüneberg. The German Community of former prisoners of the Ravensbrück camp / Circle of Friends (LGRF), a private initiative of the Grüneberg memorial site (people from Grüneberg) and the Protestant church with the Polish Club of former prisoners of KL Ravensbruck organized this ceremony. LGRF had therefore prepared a Polish-German brochure with the content of information boards at the memorial site, accounts of two Polish women imprisoned there, a camp prayer by a Polish prisoner and a speech by Janusz Rakowicz, who was born in Grüneberg. In addition to many people from Grüneberg and the surrounding area, including the Libertas school in Löwenberg, the Ravensbrück Family Association was also there with a large group of scouts.

All (former) forced labor commandos of KL Ravensbrück, Grüneberg, are places that symbolize limitless hatred of man towards man. When we come to the anniversary ceremonies every year, we pay tribute to all the deportees who found themselves in KL Ravensbrück and its commandos. Let us remember those whose ashes lie at the bottom of Lake Schwedt or are in the cemetery in Furstenberg. But let us also remember Grüneberg and the forced workers who suffered here, on this piece of land where we were standing at the day of our anniversary ceremony. This land is sanctified by the blood and suffering of women and girls imprisoned and working beyond their strength. We came here for them. Understanding the purpose of the April anniversary celebrations, we stood in solidarity and joined in reflection and prayer.

An appeal arose from Grüneberg - an appeal for active joint actions and for transferring the memory of the victims of KL Ravensbrück and Grüneberg in a generational relay, passing on the memory to young people, to the next generation. Let us call evil by its name: evil. Only by showing the truth and historical facts can we recall the values that bind intergenerational and international people. These timeless values inspire responsibility for what our world and that of future generations will be like.

From this place, a land saturated with suffering, the victims tell us, they call to us living, "No more war. No more triumph of hatred and violence of man against man."