About us
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (Gedenkdienst) is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service. Its participants serve at major Holocaust memorial institutions.
The Gedenkdienst 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 Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service, an independent, though largely government-funded
foundation. The intent of the Gedenkdienst 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 Holocaust Memorial Service 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 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.
Links:
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
About.com Guide to the Holocaust
Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP)
AMCHA - Israeli Center for Holocaust Survivors
Association of European Jewish Museums
Association of Jewish Youth in Austria (VJHÖ)
Austrian Association for Service Abroad
Austrian Fund for Reconciliation
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
Austrian Press & Information Service, Washington D.C.
Austrian Victims of the Holocaust
Birobidizhan: Stalin's Forgotten Zion
Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary
Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Peace Studies
Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights
Centre for German-Jewish Studies - University of Sussex
Centropa - Jewish Heritage in Central and Eastern Europe
Cinematography of the Holocaust
Commission On Interreligious Affairs of Reform Judaism
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
European Association for Jewish Culture
European Council of Jewish Communities
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenohobia (EUMC)
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
Franz Jägerstätter and Leopold Engleitner
Holocaust Center of Northern California
Holocaust Teacher Resource Center
Holocaust World Resource Center
House of the Wannsee Conference
Interfaith Holocaust Memorial Service
International Council of Christians and Jews
International Society for Human Rights
Jewish Culture Festival in Cracow
Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre in Melbourne
Jewish Labor and the Holocaust
JTA Global News Service of the Jewish People
Maven-Search - Jewish Web Directory - Holocaust & Antisemitism
Memorial for the Austrian victims of the Shoah
Memorial Sites in Northrhine-Westfalia
Memorial to the murdered jews in Europe
National Christian Leadership Conference For Israel
North American Alliance For Jewish Youth
PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
Resources for Children of Holocaust Survivors
Romano Centro - Association for Roma
Sites of the Pogrom against the Jewish People in Innsbruck Tyrol, Austria
Society for Contemporary History
Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
Task Force for International Cooperaton on Holocaust Education
The Association for Jewish Studies
The Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance
The Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo
The International Auschwitz Committee
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation
The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous
The National Fund of the Republic of Austria for the victims of National Socialism
The Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust Studies
The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism
The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History
THOU SHALT NOT KIL - Poles on Jedwabne
Vilnius International Forum on Holocaust Era Looted Cultural Assets
Webster University - Holocaust & Genocide Studies
Zygmunt Frankel: SIBERIAN DIARY
