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The Chairman of the International Auschwitz Committee Has Died

Kurt Hacker, chairman of the International Auschwitz Committee, has died at 81. As a young Wehrmacht soldier, he joined the resistance movement against the Nazis, and was sentenced as a result to sixteen years in prison. He spent two and a half years in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He was later director of the Mauthausen memorial and held the chairmanship of the International Auschwitz Committee for four years.

Kurt Hacker attached particular importance to discussions with young people from all across Europe, during which he told them about his life and warned them against the growth of intolerance, anti-Semitism, and racism.

In June 2000, Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek nominated Kurt Hacker to the International Auschwitz Council.

The International Auschwitz Council (Comité International d'Auschwitz) was founded in 1952 as a result of the unification of national Auschwitz councils, made up of Auschwitz survivors, in individual European countries. The goals of the IAC were initially bearing witness to Nazi crimes against humanity and searching for Nazi war criminals, exposing attempts at the falsification of history, maintaining solidarity among survivors of the camp, cooperating with the Auschwitz Museum, and help in obtaining financial compensation for former Third-Reich slave laborers. In the 1980s, the IAC contributed to the rise of various foundations dedicated to commemorating Auschwitz.