2023-05-08 20:03:32
Vienna (OTS) – Thousands of participants followed the invitation of the Mauthausen Committee Austria (MKÖ) to the Festival of Joy with a concert by Konstantin Wecker, guest conductor Mark Mast and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The highlight of the festival was the speech by contemporary witness Anna Hackl. Together with other contemporary witnesses who were the guests of honor at today’s festival, thousands of people celebrated the day of liberation from National Socialism on Heldenplatz. ORF III broadcast the MKÖ event live and the MKÖ streamed it in several languages for international viewers.
Under this year’s main theme “Civil Courage”, the MKÖ organized the Festival of Joy at Vienna’s Heldenplatz for the 11th time. In coordination with the police, around 8,000 visitors celebrated the day of liberation from the Nazi regime of terror, the 78th anniversary of which was May 8, 2023.
Musically, the event was enriched with a concert by Konstantin Wecker and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Traditionally, the Federal President Dr. Alexander Van der Bellen and Willi Mernyi, MKÖ chairman, the celebration. In his speech, Mernyi emphasized the importance of the festival of joy, especially in times of unrest: “Civil courage is a topic that accompanies us just as much today as it did then. The number of right-wing extremist incidents and crimes is increasing every year – on the one hand in public space and on the other hand increasingly through hate propaganda on the Internet. That’s why we need people who stand up and take part in the debates in public spaces and people who sit down at their computers and take a stand once morest racism and injustice online.
Eyewitness Anna Hackl: Speech for civil courage
The high point was the words of contemporary witness Anna Hackl once morest forgetting. Anna Hackl, born Anna Langthaler in 1931 in Schwertberg in Upper Austria, and her family took in two Soviet soldiers who had escaped from the concentration camp under National Socialism and hid them from the SS until the end of the war actively contributes to keeping the atrocities of the National Socialists in the collective memory and communicating them to young people.
The festival of joy can be accessed at www.festderfreude.at and the YouTube channel of the Austrian Mauthausen Committee. The special broadcast, the ceremony and the concert are available via ORF III following the TV broadcast as video-on-demand at .
Additional Information:
Questions & contact:
Mauthausen Committee Austria
Willi Mernyi, Chairman
Tel.: 01-212 83 33
E-Mail: info@mkoe.at
Web:
1683576813
#Festival #Joy #people #celebrated #liberation #National #Socialism #8th
