Day of Remembrance
About this event
The program at a glance
16:30 to 18:00 – Public guided city tour "Stolpersteine in Zittau"
Armin Pietsch from the organization Augen auf e.V. guides participants to places commemorating persecuted and murdered Zittau residents.
Meeting point: Johanniskirche Zittau. Destination: Catholic Church of the Visitation (Katholische Kirche Mariä Heimsuchung).
18:00 – Ecumenical service - Catholic Church of the Visitation
18:30 – Commemoration at the memorial plaque - Lessingstraße 12, near the site of the former synagogue. Includes a wreath-laying ceremony and a speech by City Councilor Andreas Mannschott, 1st Deputy Mayor. The commemoration will be musically accompanied by the Zittau Trombone Choir (Zittauer Posaunenchor).
19:30 – "Stories of Lost Neighbors" - Café Jolesch, Klienebergerplatz 1, 02763 Zittau
Background: November 9th as a municipal day of remembrance
In its session in November 1993, the Zittau City Council declared November 9th the "Day of Remembrance for Democracy and Peacefulness" for the city of Zittau. The resolution consciously connects several events that fall on this date: the Hitler putsch of 1923 as the beginning of the "brown movement" and the Reich Pogrom Night of 1938. It also recalls that, by tolerating the destruction of the synagogue and participating in the robbery, expulsion, and extermination of Jewish fellow citizens, guilt was incurred in Zittau. At the same time, it identifies the proclamation of the first German Republic in 1918 and the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, as opportunities for a democratic path.
Thus, this day commemorates not only the pogroms and their victims, but also the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 and the opportunity to live in freedom and democracy after four decades of dictatorship. The resolution urges citizens to "bring this democracy to life through their own contributions." It also obliges the city to foster responsible and peaceful coexistence in the Three-Country Region (Dreiländereck) with Poland and Bohemia. Since then, the city has hosted an ecumenical service and a commemoration at the Lessingstraße 12 memorial plaque every year on November 9th.
