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“The Light of Remembrance” for Professor Jürgen Rüttgers
Professor Jürgen Rüttgers has been awarded the “Light of Remembrance,” the highest distinction of the Auschwitz Memorial. The award was presented to him on 29 April in Düsseldorf by the Director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński. A particularly important aspect of the laureate’s public activity has been his commitment to preserving the authenticity of the Auschwitz Memorial.
As Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, and also after concluding his political career, Rüttgers was among those politicians who supported the involvement of both the German federal government and the German federal states in supporting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, whose aim is to finance long-term conservation work and protect all authentic remains of the Auschwitz camp. Professor Rüttgers is also a member of the Foundation’s Council.
“The creation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, and thus the entire process of preserving authenticity, would not have been possible without the personal involvement of Professor Jürgen Rüttgers from the very beginning of this project. He fully understood how important it is to encounter authenticity in the education of future generations, especially those who did not experience the atrocities of the Second World War and the Holocaust, and who could not witness the immense post-war effort of building a common Europe,” said Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
The significant role of Prof. Rüttgers lay above all in strengthening the conviction that the authenticity of all remains of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz must be secured through a stable, international system of support.
Jürgen Rüttgers was born in 1951 in Cologne. He studied law and history. From 1987, he served as a member of the Bundestag, where he focused primarily on science, technology, and education policy.
Between 1994 and 1998, he headed the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology, and from 2005 to 2010 he served as Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia. After leaving active politics, he has remained present in public life as a lawyer, academic lecturer, and member and collaborator of institutions engaged in historical memory, international dialogue, and German-Polish as well as German-Israeli relations.
The Light of Remembrance is an award established and granted by the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum for an outstanding contribution to education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. It honors individuals who are engaged in maintaining and transmitting the memory of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.
Previous recipients of this award include Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, Krystyna Oleksy, Avner Shalev, Serge Klarsfeld, Sara Bloomfield, Luis Ferreiro, Romani Rose, Piotr Setkiewicz and Michael Berenbaum.
