(Vienna/Graz, 5th September 2017) While the head of the government of the province of Styria, Hermann Schützenhofer (ÖVP), mayor Siegfried Nagl (ÖVP) and foreign minister Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) – who pretends to have noticed even poor people on his journeys – promise the moon for the future on the 4th of September at the start of the Styrian election campaign of the Austrian Peoples’ Party (ÖVP), excavators have digged over the area of the NS Forced Labour Camp Graz-Liebenau in the south of Graz and have begun to remove the remnants of this dark spot in the history of Graz, all of which went unnoticed by the public.
The justificative statement of the press officer of the mayor of Graz, Thomas Rajakovics (ÖVP), that it is simply a question of “just one forced labour camp like others” and not a “concentration camp”, makes ‘Active Unemployed Austria’ sit up and take notice in many respects.
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Thomas Rajakovics has already proposed a motion on 23rd September 2010 demanding that drawers of the means-tested minimum income should do “community work in future in return for the means-tested minimum income” and has verbally confirmed this form of requirement to work even before the past local council election.
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It is supposed that on the building site of the Mur power station only low-paid workers from adjacent foreign countries are employed without exception, the number of which does not reach the 1,800 workplaces which have been promised.
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The Austrian Peoples’ Party thinks nothing of the fact that allotments which have to give way to the power station are settled on the very grounds of the NS forced labour camp.
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Although the power station is economically totally unprofitable and although Austria has enough electricity reserves and the town council imposes even more debts on the citizens because of the central storage channel, the Austrian Peoples’ Party sticks to getting the controversial power station through at all costs. The province of Styria and the town of Graz still keep essential information a secret from its own citizens – like the ominous prolongation decision for the planning and building permission from summer 2016 and competent expert’s opinions.
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Dealing with forced labour is, however, a democratic-political issue and despite this fact the media report conspicuously little about it. The Austrian Public Broadcasting Company (ORF) even rewrites a report. It deletes the criticism of the lacking will to reappraise the past, that is to say, the search for the dead, and advertises the book about the NS Camp Graz Liebenau instead at the end of the broadcast, which has been written in 2012 and in which all documents which have been known at that time are said to be published.
As if this weren’t enough, the reappraisal claimed by the civilian society has been vehemently prevented and impeded for years and so it is currently because of the excavations and after the first findings of the remains of the camp:
Although the remnants of the NS Forced Labour Camp Graz Liebenau haven’t even been got through, where victims possibly have been buried in bomb craters, the evidence of the past is disposed of by brutal force. Guided tours to the excavations are only offered to a hand-picked circle of people on the quiet if they announce a list of people beforehand who dare to show interest in the NS camp. Whoever wants to have further information, is only referred to and fro under reference to the confusion of authority without getting any information.
That is why ‘Aktive Arbeitslose Austria’ and the cooperating platform ‘murXkraftwerk.at’ which is independent of parties demand the following:
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Immediate halt on the building project in order to reappraise the evidence of the darkest chapter of the former stronghold of National Socialism in Austria.
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Disclosure of all information about the power station and the storage channel
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Appointment of an independent commission of historians for the reappraisal of the history of forced labour in Graz, not only in the NS camp of Graz Liebenau, but also in dozens of other camps which have been scattered all over the town and which are completely hushed up, a history which has so far been strongly repressed!
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Appointment of an independent investigating committee for the reappraisal of the numerous inconsistencies in the power station and the storage channel and the many breaches of law and the perversion of justice which have been committed for carrying through the power station.
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Working out of alternatives for the unprofitable Mur power station in Graz and for the unnecessary storage channel by a decentral production of energy on site, by saving of energy and by sustainable rain water cultivation by taking the population of Graz completely into account. Thus not only the citizens of Graz can become more independent of the big companies, but there are also meaningful jobs which are sustainably created directly in Graz by strengthening the economy of Graz!
‘Aktive Arbeitslose Austria’ and ‘murXkraftwerk.at’ call upon Austria to motivate antifascist and Jewish organisations as well as independent journalist outside of Austria to cast some light on the matter of dark Austria because of the party cronyism. A list of potential contact places is collected on the website of ‘murxkraftwerk.at’ and is constantly supplemented.
http://bik.ac.at/das-lager-graz-liebenau-der-ns-zeit/
Rajakovics’ motion for the local council, dated 23rd September 2010:
Latest statements of Rajakovics on the forced labour camp Liebenau:
Polishing of history according to the Austrian Public Broadcasting Company ORF in Styria
“The position of potential mass graves can be limited up to half a metre according to expert reports. That the dead have not been forgotten is not least thanks to medic Rainer Possert in Graz: ‘We demand that further excavations are carried out at the spots which are clearly defined and where victims could possibly be buried and that it is clarified so that one can also pay one’s respects to the dead.’ What has been missing so far, is the political will of the town government, to clarify the extent of the crime.” [bold text had been erased]
Following text replaced the erased one:
It is said that the local town started to deal with this area of its past years ago. In 2012 all documents pertaining to the forced labour camp Liebenau which have been known until then were published in book form.