EuroNews 01-2007, Euroboard
1. Knowledge Contest “Lidice for 21st Century”
Lidice Memorial, an allowance organization of the Ministry of Culture of Czech Republic and the Military Historical Institute Prague would like to announce the 2nd year of the knowledge contest “Lidice for 21st Century”.
The patronage over the contest was taken over by the minister of Culture of Czech Republic and the minister of Education, Youth and Physical Training.
The contest is for children and youth from the whole world. Its aim is to contribute to keep the memory of the central bohemian village Lidice citizens who were murdered by Nazis in 1942, as well as it should intensify the knowledge of the youngest generation about historical events connected to the World War II and to Nazi totalitarian regimes in the world in 20 century.
www.lidice21.cz/default_en.aspx
2. Dinner for all – A video clip with Bob Geldof
The video clip can be downloaded here:
www.tagesspiegel.de/videos/dinnerforall.mpg
Minor knowledge of German is necessary
When is the mass murder of people genocide? Is there a difference between the homicides of some hundred or many thousand people? Questions, which lead to headlines every single day, as the case Darfur and the wrangling around a UN resolution, show over and over again. Mass murders that date back a long time still concern the public and especially the offspring of the victims. An international team of 40 researchers wants to put this year for the first time a comprehensive encyclopaedia to mass crime in the Internet. A project, which might cause strong and negative reactions in spite of all care. “The 20-th century was, concerning the destruction of people, one of the most murderous years in the history “, says project initiator Jacques Sémelin of the French study centre for international research (CERI). ” Till this day no data bank collects our knowledge. The encyclopaedia should close this gap. ” Besides, the juridical processing of many crimes is going on. In January 2007 began a process in Iraq against six former followers of Saddam Hussein who should be responsible in 1987 and 1988 for the death of more than 180,000 Kurds. And since January 2007 the international penal court of law deals for ex-Yugoslavia once more with the siege of Sarajevo in which thousands of civilians were killed between 1992 and 1995
Information online: www.massviolence.org
News from Europe:
Legal aid for young people
The Berlin lawyer’s association has opened a youth legal aid office. The service offers a free first consultation for socially disadvantaged youngsters between 14 and 21 years. ” With this institution we want to turn straight to socially weak which often shrink back from the way to the lawyer “, explained a lawyer. Many of the young people do not know, that they have a right of legal assistance in spite of their financial situation. The parents of the youngsters will not be informed about the legal advice given to their children.
Unicef Report 2006
Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Professor of Socialization at the University of Bielefeld, headed various research associations on right-wing extremism, violence, xenophobia, and ethnic-cultural conflicts. In his recently published long term study he published the following figures:
– every second German is xenophobic
– in Eastern Germany even more than 60 % of the population have a xenophobic tendency, in the western part about 46 %.
The results point out: ” where problem zones become visible. It is also about the substance of the democratic order. Deflation of democracy takes place “, according to the leader of the study. 9,968 persons were questioned. for the elevation of the institute of interdisciplinary conflict studies and research of violence of the university of Bielefeld.
The ten SS army officers, who have massacred hundreds of civilians in 1944 in Marazabotto/Italy, will presumably remain unpunished. Indeed, an Italian military court in La Spezia condemned the men to lifelong prison sentences at the beginning of January . Nevertheless, a speaker of the German Ministry of Justice pointed out the fact that a delivery of the convictions is “problematic because the judgments have been made in absence of the defendants.”
The massacres which were retried occurred between the 29th September and the 5th October, 1944. Supposedly to the pursuit of Italian partisans a German division combed the area. The SS people murdered on the worst way in Marzabotto more than 800 people. .
The convicted are according to the court: Paul Albers (88), Josef Baumann (82), Hubert Bichler (87), Max Roithmeier (85), Max Schneider (81), Heinz Fritz Traeger (84), Georg Wache (86), Helmut Wulf (84), Adolf Schneider (87), Kurt Spieler (81)
The leader, the Austrian Walter Reder, was condemned in 1951 to lifelong custody, then was pardoned in 1985.