What is The Book of Remembrance?

"The basic idea with a Book of Remembrance is to make the names behind the numbers visible; to set a prisoner apart from the anonymous rest and give him back his individuality", Klaus Schultz says. He is the deacon of the Protestant Church of Reconciliation on the memorial site of the concentration camp in Dachau and a member of the Carrier Group responsible for the Book of Remembrance.

During the years 1933-45 more 200 000 prisoner were taken away into the concentration camp in Dachau. For the National Socialists this concentration camp would to become the model for more 2 000 camps thoughout Europe. The first prisoners were the political opponents of the National Socialists: Communists, Social Demokrats, trade unionists, several politicians of the bourgeois parties and monarchists. Later Jews, priests, Jehovahs Witnesses, "gypsies", homosexuals, socalled "anti-socials" and criminals. During the war the majority of the prisoners came from the occupied contries. A single critical remark or the belonging to a pursued minority was sufficent to be sent to the concentration camps. To a great many people this meant a death sentence.

Klaus Schultz and Uwe Neirich, at that time educational employee of the promote society for International Youth Meetings, both knew the Memorial Book of the Old Synagogue in Essen. 1997 they considered carring out a similar project. 1999 the idea could be realized with the aid of the Carrier Group.

Every year on the 22nd of March, the annual day of the building of the concentration camp, the new biographical remenbrance sheets are presented. Former prisoners, relatives, school children and others, who are interested have written them and thereby set a symbol of remembrance. Till now about 30 biographies have been finished. They are at the moment laid out in the Church of Reconciliation. New biographies are steadily being added. After the rebuilding of the Memorial Museum the Book of Remembrance will be exhibited in their educational department.

Each biography of a prisoner contains four pages. The writers choose the language, in which they want to write and give the pages their own personal touch. In this way the remembrace sheets shall illustrate the wide variety of the prisoners, who came from 27 nations.

"We wish for it to be understood that Dachau is more than just this place. Behind the high figures of more than 200 000 prisoners and more than 32 000 dead, stand individual biographies, drafts of lives and the families of the pursued. We want to give back the prisoner a face and bring the background of their persuit into our time. That is the general thought of our project."