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In August, we celebrated the completion of the Fritz Bauer Library with many guests at our summer party. Now the books can move in, a task that we will tackle in the coming weeks and months. Soon after our summer party, which met with great interest, the first events followed. The library room is well suited for smaller film and discussion events, seminars and retreats as well as readings with up to fifty participants. The events as part of the autumn programme „Memoria Viva. Latin America on the move“, which was published in August, will largely take place in the library.
The summer festival with an open day to mark the completion of the Fritz Bauer Library took place on 11 August 2023 with the participation of artists and many visitors. More than 200 people took the opportunity to visit the Fritz Bauer Library and find out more about the Fritz Bauer Forum. For those involved, it was also a half-time celebration, as the second construction phase had just begun with the demolition work for the quasi-new Fritz Bauer Forum building.
The first guests arrived at 3 p.m. for the opening, including local and state politicians, journalists, many friends and active supporters from the social movement and Bochum’s city administration, as well as many of the craftspeople involved in the conversion of the former Havkenscheid mourning hall into a library. The director of the Fritz Bauer Forum, Irmtrud Wojak, welcomed the guests. Her speech, which moved many, invited them to participate in the development of this unique place for Bochum and far beyond, where the life and work of the lawyer and social democrat Fritz Bauer, his independent thinking and actions, can now be brought to life for the first time in history. She emphasised the current tasks of the Fritz Bauer Forum „In the fight for human rights“ and the historical and political challenges associated with this.
The Bochum artist Dorothee Schäfer, curator of the exhibition in and around the new library on the occasion of the summer festival, introduced the participating artists and their works in her welcoming speech. The impressive artistic works emphasised and simultaneously highlighted the current significance of the new research and memorial site with the leitmotif „Human dignity is inviolable“. The artists addressed current topics and Dorothee Schäfer presented the various works, for which the artists themselves had written short texts. These related to the location of the library and emphasised their own concerns, which arose for the artists from their engagement with this special place, its history and its particular topicality and charisma. In keeping with the aims of the forum, some of the art installations invited visitors to participate and take a stand on the works and their history.
Sculptures by Eberhard Linke, Elena Pinci Schneier, Dorothee Schäfer and Angela Schilling were on display in the library and on the Forum’s building site. A sound installation by Ute Friederike Jürß was dedicated to the theme of human dignity and could be heard for the entire duration of the event. Pictures by the painter Reinhold Spratte, who designed the covers of the „Fritz Bauer Library“ book series (BUXUS EDITION) with their stories of resistance and survival, were on display. Mike and Rabea showed their photographs and videos documenting the protest and resistance against the destruction of the Hambach Forest and the village of Lützerath, bringing this theme into the new Fritz Bauer Library.
The musical accompaniment was provided by „Grupo Manzanar“, who presented their „Víctor Jara Project“ at the same time, as well as the project of a music school for disadvantaged children and young people in the Chilean harbour city of Valparaiso, which the group has been supporting for many years. Anyone who was unable to attend the summer festival but would like to find out more can do so as part of the „Memoria Viva“ series of events. The sculpture by Eberhard Linke and the „Víctor Jara Project“ – the donation of the terracotta sculpture in the form of a bronze sculpture to the Víctor Jara Foundation in Chile – will accompany the programme of events at the Fritz Bauer Library until 17 October 2023.
As much as the extraordinary interest in our summer festival surprised us, at least in part, and we had to improvise with some of the organisation, we are very pleased that we were able to welcome so many visitors and get to know so many new people. Many stimulating conversations developed and we are delighted about the new opportunities for cooperation that opened up in this context.
The event with the Jerusalem historian and anti-Semitism researcher Moshe Zimmermann unfortunately had to be cancelled on 29 August due to illness, but we are currently trying to find a rescheduled date soon.
The „2nd Mini Festival for Visionary Urban Development“ organised by BO-initiativ also took place in August. Films dealing with future-oriented urban development and care work were shown at various locations in Bochum. As part of this, we showed the film Start Wearing Purple in the Fritz Bauer Library on 31 August. The film about five Berliners who, together with many others, have set themselves the task of expropriating large letting companies, shows in a vivid way what drives people to stand up to the power of property companies.
10 September, 10.00 – 18.0 hrs: Open Monument Day
10 September, 6.30 – 8.30 pm: Witnesses of 11 September 1973 in Chile report
Start of the series „Memoria Viva. Latin America on the move“ in cooperation with Amnesty International Bochum
13 September, 5.30 – 9.30 pm: Chile: book presentation, discussion and film
21 September, 18.30 – 20.30: Argentina: Book presentation and discussion
24 September, 18.30 – 20.30: Chile: Lecture and discussion
26 September, 19.00 – 21.00: Argentina: Film and discussion
All dates of the series here .