Inscripció:

Mahnmal für die nach der Machtübernahme der Nationalsozialisten in Österreich vertriebenen Angehörigen der Hochschule für Welthandel

Inre Schicksale dokumentiert das Gedenkbuch - <a href="https://gedenkbuch.wu.ac.at" rel="noreferrer nofollow">gedenkbuch.wu.ac.at</a>

Alexander Karl Felch, Mitarbeit: Ekaterina Makarova errichtet 2014

Panel informatiu:

Gedenkprojekt der WU = WU Commemorative Project

Austria's incorporation into Nazi Germany in 1938 had fatal consequences for the University of World Trade (Hochschule für Welthandel, HWH), the institution that would later become today's WU. During Nazi rule, many WU students, faculty, and staff members, particularly Jews, suffered systematic persecution and expulsion. The goal of the Commemorative Project is to help WU come to terms with this chapter in its history on the basis of thorough historical research and to keep the memory of the victims and the wrongs they suffered alive with a memorial on Campus WU.

The Memorial: the memorial is a sphere placed on a small, grass-covered mound. Its surface is formed by the names of the people to whom it is dedicated and by the empty spaces and connecting elements in between. With its irregular appearance, the sphere has a flowing, organic aesthetic quality to it that points to the human lives behind the names. The names converge to form an organic unit, joined together by a shared fate. The arrangement of the names creates the impression of a great multitude, representing the vast number of people with similar stories of suffering and injustice. The opening on one side is symbolic of the gaping wound left behind by the Nazi regime - the memorial remains incomplete, a reminder that we will probably never be able to bring full closure to this chapter of our history. In this way, an incomplete present evokes the great injustice done in the past, which remains visible as a symbolic scar. (Alexander Felch)