In Vienna, the construction of a new Holocaust memorial has begun

Vienna - A new Holocaust memorial has begun construction in Vienna on Monday. For the first time in Austria, it will feature the names of all 64,259 victims of the extermination of Jews in the country. The memorial is set to open next year in the fall, reported the APA agency.

A circular wall with the names of Holocaust victims will be erected in a park next to the building of the Austrian National Bank. It is meant to serve as a reminder for the future that the fight against antisemitism must continue, emphasized Wolfgang Sobotka, the chairman of the Austrian National Council, today.

Oskar Deutsch, the chairman of the Jewish community in Austria, called for determined resistance to antisemitism and racism. He reminded that Austria has had decades of difficulty reconciling with its historical responsibility. The complicity of "so incredibly many Austrians" with the Nazi regime has not always been sincerely acknowledged, according to him.

Only in 1991 did then-Chancellor Franz Vranitzky become the first Austrian head of government to admit the shared guilt of Austrians for the Nazi atrocities, and the current Chancellor Sebastian Kurz brought the project of the memorial, initiated by Holocaust survivor Kurt Yakov Tutter, to fruition, Deutsch said.