On 1 and 2 July, our annual commemorative hike including a dialogue forum took place in Krimml, Salzburg.
Before the actual events began, some participants visited the Anton Wallner barracks in Saalfelden on 30 June, following the traces of the historic DP camp Givat Avoda. From there, thousands of Jews had made their way across the Alps towards what is now Israel in the years after the end of the Second World War.
Saturday 1.7. 2023 Peace Award Ceremony and Dialogue Forum
To our great pleasure, our association was able to award three Peace Prizes in persona this year (two from 2023 as well as one retrospectively from 2022). The honourees Miri Nehari, Hanna Weiss and Judith Forthuber were honoured for their outstanding commitment to collecting and communicating knowledge about the Jewish Exodus (for more details, please see the Alpendistel). We would like to thank our Honorary President Ernst Löschner for the touching laudatios for the award winners.
The event was introduced by the official welcome of the association’s president Robert Obermair as well as by greetings from the mayor of Krimml Erich Czerny and the cultural officer of the Israeli embassy in Austria Maya Karmely Sommer.
This year, the Dialogue Forum dealt with the topic of flight and its mediation. This extremely complex and multi-layered topic was first opened by the director of the Jewish Museum Vienna, Barbara Staudinger. She presented her exciting perspectives on the social role(s) and tasks of (Jewish) museums. Afterwards, the writer Julya Rabinowich read excerpts from her novels „Me in between“ and „We in between“. The subsequent panel discussion was completed by our board member Jakob Gruber, who as a youth worker contributed another perspective. These different approaches to the topic of mediating flight (literary, museum and social work) were brought together in the usual professional manner and embedded in current contexts by our moderator Michael Kerbler, who also guided the entire event with aplomb.
The dialogue forum was concluded with an official thank you to our moderator Michael Kerbler and a laudation for Ernst Löschner on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The musical accompaniment to the dialogue forum by Maren Rahmann with her songs „Facets of Resistance“ was also harmonious and full of content.
Special thanks are also due to our coordinator of the Scientific Advisory Board Kay-Michael Dankl for the impressive simultaneous translation of the entire event and Jakob Thuswaldner for translating a novel excerpt for the reading by Julya Rabinowich for our international guests.
Sunday 2.7 Alpine Peace Crossing / Crossing of the Krimmler Tauern
In the early morning hours, about 250 participants* were transported by taxis to the Krimmler Tauernhaus. After greetings from the host of the Tauernhaus Friedl Geisler, the Deputy Head of Mission of the State of Israel Maya Karmely Sommer as well as Ernst Löschner, the hikers set off in the direction of the traces of the flight of 1947. At the first stop at the grove of the flight, the view was directed towards today: Jutta and Joachim Klammer addressed the structural and institutionalised discrimination of refugees in Austria based on the case of a family from Colombia that they cared for. Elizaveta Oliinyk criticised Austria’s manifold economic and political ties with Putin’s Russia and called for the cultural consequences of the Russian war of aggression to be addressed more strongly. This contribution was moderated by Hildegard Schreckeis-Nägele, who presented the association Hiketides, which offers psychotherapy in their first language for refugees in Salzburg.
Along the beautiful Krimmler Achental valley, we hiked on to the Windbachalm, where our team members Caro Huber and Bettina Reiter retold the events of the 1947 escape. The last input happened at the highest point of our walk, on the Tauern Pass. There we were given exciting insights into the work of the South Tyrolean association Zebra, which publishes a street newspaper and does a variety of social work. A new record was set with about 185 people walking all the way to Kasern („step by step“ in the footsteps of the Jewish women, men and children of 1947) on the APC peace/memorial hike.
The accompaniment by the Krimml Mountain Rescue Service (Peter Nothdurfter and Franz Gensbichler) and by the doctor Christian Gruber was particularly valuable. We thank them very much!
Hiking along the historic escape route, we finally reached Kasern, where drinks and a snack were already waiting for us. We would like to thank the mayors Helmut Klammer (municipality of Ahrntal) and Robert Steger (municipality of Prettau) for the warm welcome and the food. Many thanks also to Elfriede Hallama and Karl Kogler for the musical reception of our APC participants in Kasern!
Our greatest thanks go to the team of the Krimml Tourist Association, especially Andrea Mair, without whose decisive help the organisation of our events would not be possible. After these very successful events, which we hope were interesting and full of beautiful encounters for all participants, we will take a break for a few weeks. After that, we will start planning the next Alpendistel magazine and Commemorative Hike again, this time on the topic of „Austrofascism“ on the occasion of the anniversary of the February Fights.
Registration for the Alpine Peace Crossing 2024 will start in February 2024, the date will be announced in autumn.