The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA) was founded by the

Austrian Service Abroad The Austrian Service Abroad is a non-profit organization founded by Andreas Hörtnagl, Andreas Maislinger and Michael Prochazka in 1998, which sends young Austrians to work in partner institutions worldwide serving Holocaust commemoration in f ...

in 2006.

Meaning

The prize is annually conferred to a person, a group of individuals or an institution, which has shown special endeavors for the memory of the Shoah and / or made special contributions to Jewish life.

Background

Since 1992 Austria has annually sent young Austrians abroad to serve in form of Gedenkdiener in many places around the world remembering the crimes of

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

, commemorating its victims and contributing to Jewish life. Example partner institutions are the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Poland,

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

in Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in the United States, the

Jewish Museum Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses ...

in Germany, the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Australia, the

Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center The Russian Research and Educational Holocaust Center was founded in 1992 in Moscow and has since then been working on awareness raising of the Holocaust in the Russian society. It is the only non-governmental organization in the Russian Federation ...

in Russia and the

Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai The Center for Jewish Studies Shanghai (CJSS, ) was established in 1988. It is a department of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Under the leadership of Dean Professor Pan Guang CJSS has become the most influential research institute in Ch ...

in China. The Gedenkdienst service is rooted in the acknowledgment of responsibility by the

Republic of Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ci ...

for the crimes committed by the Austrian

National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

Presentations

On October 17, 2006, the Chinese historian Pan Guang was awarded the first AHMA prize. Michael Prochazka and Austrian Servand Abroad of the Year 2006 Martin Wallner attended the reception in Shanghai. The Brazilian journalist

Alberto Dines Alberto Dines (February 19, 1932 – May 22, 2018) was a Brazilian journalist and writer. Biography With a career spanning over five decades, Dines directed and launched several magazines and newspapers in Brazil and Portugal. He has taught jo ...

was crowned as the AHMA 2007 winner on October 24, 2007 at the Austrian consulate in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

for his effort to establish

Casa Stefan Zweig The Casa Stefan Zweig is legally regarded as a private charitable organisation, which was founded in 2006 by a group of interested private donors, to establish a writer's house museum, that is dedicated to the author, in the last residence of St ...

, a museum devoted to Stefan Zweig in Petropolis, and his book ''Morte no paraíso, a tragédia de Stefan Zweig''. In March 2008, Robert Hébras was assigned with the award at the Austrian embassy in Paris in presence of

Beate Klarsfeld Beate Auguste Klarsfeld (née Künzel; born 13 February 1939) is a Franco-German journalist and Nazi hunter who, along with her French husband, Serge, became famous for their investigation and documentation of numerous Nazi war criminals, inc ...

and Andreas Maislinger, founder of the

Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Gedenkdienst is the concept of facing and taking responsibility for the darkest chapters of one's own country's history while ideally being financially supported by one's own country's government to do so. Founded in Austria in 1992 by Andreas Ma ...

and initiator of the AHMA. Robert Hébras is one of only six survivors of the massacre of Oradour and is still giving tours at the age of 84. For 2009 Jay M. Ipson received the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award. Austrian Ambassador to the United States of America Dr. Christian Prosl visited the

Virginia Holocaust Museum The Virginia Holocaust Museum (VHM) is a public history museum located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. The museum is dedicated to depicting the Holocaust through the personal stories of its victims. History The VHM first opened in 1997, fou ...

and presented the award to the co-founder and Executive Director. Ipson is a Holocaust survivor from Lithuania, who was deported to the

Kovno Ghetto The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were sho ...

at the age of six. On October 28, 2010, the Austrian ambassador to Australia, Dr. Hannes Porias, conferred the award to the Austrian-born Holocaust survivor Eva Marks in Melbourne and read a letter of congratulations from the president of the Austrian parliament, Barbara Prammer. Also the prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, sent a congratulatory letter, conferred by the Australian MP

Michael Danby Michael David Danby (born 16 February 1955) is an Australian politician who was an Australian Labor Party member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1998 until 2019, representing the Division of Melbourne Ports, Victoria. Danby was b ...

Recipients

* 2006 Pan Guang, Shanghai, China * 2007

, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil * 2008

Robert Hébras Robert Hébras (29 June 1925 – 11 February 2023) was one of only six people to survive the massacre of Oradour by Nazi Germany's Waffen-SS Das Reich Panzer Division on 10 June 1944. He was born in Oradour-sur-Glane. Hébras died on 11 Febru ...

Oradour-sur-Glane Oradour-sur-Glane (; oc, Orador de Glana) was a commune in the Haute-Vienne department, New Aquitaine, west central France, as well as the name of the main village within the commune. History The original village was destroyed on 10 June 194 ...

, France * 2009 Jay M. Ipson, Richmond, Virginia, United States * 2010 Eva Marks,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia * 2011 Auschwitz Jewish Center, Oswiecim,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

* 2012 Ladislaus Löb, Brighton, England * 2013 Hugo Höllenreiner,

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Ba ...

, Germany * 2014 Marģers Vestermanis, Riga, LatviaA legend of Latvia’s Jewish community celebrates his 90th birthday
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190224002116/https://www.baltictimes.com/a_legend_of_latvia___s_jewish_community_celebrates_his_90th_birthday/ , date=February 24, 2019 , The Baltic Times, October 21, 2015 * 2015 Erika Rosenberg, Buenos Aires, Argentina * 2016

Giorgio Frassineti Giorgio Frassineti (29 September 1964 in Forlì) is an Italian politician of the Partito Democratico (PD) and from 2009 to 2019 mayor of Predappio. Early life In 1990, Frassineti completed his study in geography at University of Bologna. Ca ...

, Predappio (

Forlì Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna. The city is situated along the Via ...

), Italy * 2017 Ruben Fuks, Belgrade,

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

* 2018 Alla Gerber and Ilya Altman,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

* 2019 Tomislav Dulic, Uppsala, Sweden * 2020 Dusan Stefancic, Ljubljana, Slovenia * 2021 Tali Nates,

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

* 2022 Jeffrey D. Schwartz, NaTang, Glenn Leibowitz,

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

References

External links