Youth Gala Held at Bremen City Hall
In the heart of Bremen, Germany, the annual Night of Youth (Nacht der Jugend) took place on November 6, 2024, in the town hall. This event, themed "RESPEKT:VOLL," served as a powerful antidote to xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism, calling upon everyone to treat each other with respect and to live together peacefully.
The evening was a multi-hour, diverse program that brought together young people from all walks of life. The event was planned participatory by the city's youth, offering a platform for entertainment, social interaction, and discussions on youth-related topics. The program included musical performances, dance performances, a political debate among youth, workshops, and an exhibition.
One of the highlights of the night was the conversations in the Senate Hall with two eyewitnesses who shared their experiences of living through the Nazi dictatorship. Dr. Eva Umlauf, born in a Jewish labor camp in the Slovak Republic in 1942, and Friedrich Buhlrich, born in Bremen in 1946 and adopted by a family from Gropele, both offered profound insights into their personal histories.
Dr. Umlauf, who later studied medicine and moved to Munich, where she worked as a pediatrician and psychotherapist, shared her harrowing story of being tattooed with a concentration camp number in Auschwitz at the age of almost two, along with her mother. They were deported to Auschwitz, and while Dr. Umlauf survived, her father and all other relatives were murdered by the National Socialists. Her moving account was immortalised in her book "The number on your forearm is blue like your eyes," published in March 2016.
Friedrich Buhlrich, on the other hand, learned in the late 1960s that he had three half-siblings who did not survive the National Socialism. He has been researching the history of the Bremen Nervenklinik, from which the Klinikum Bremen-Ost emerged.
The evening's program concluded with a poignant moment as Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte opened the event in the Upper Hall of the town hall and sang along with the respect song "None of us is perfect, but we all deserve respect," created by students from the high school on Kobbenzer Street in Tenever.
Attention and tolerance towards different opinions and lifestyles are the basis of a democratic and dignified society. This year's Night of Youth event in Bremen served as a powerful reminder of the importance of respect and unity, commemorating the crimes of the NS dictatorship and the Reichspogromnacht of November 9, 1938, while fostering a sense of community among the city's youth.
- The participatory program of the Night of Youth in Bremen not only offered a platform for entertainment and social interaction but also sparked discussions on personal growth, focusing particularly on understanding and learning from historical accounts of the Nazi dictatorship.
- The importance of education-and-self-development, politics, and general-news was apparent in the speaker series at the event, as participants heard gripping personal narratives from eyewitnesses of the Nazi era, emphasizing the need for attention and tolerance towards different opinions and lifestyles.
