…a long way!

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The International Youth Hostel Dachau - an example for the conflict on the history of national socialism in the Federal Republic of Germany

When on May 4, 1998 the Bavarian Secretary for Education and Science opened the International Youth Hostel in Dachau, it was a result of civil engagement to overcome yearlong disputes, tenacious negotiations on the local level, and solid support for the project by prominent German and foreign personalities.

The idea to establish an institution for encounter and education of young people in Dachau is in immediate connection with the memorial site of the former concentration camp Dachau. Since the early 1980s, it has been visited by 700.000 to 900.000 visitors annually, about a half of them young people. At that time, there was no accommodation and there existed no institution to stay longer for those who wanted to become more familiar with the history of the concentration camp and the lessons to be learned from it. In 1981, a group of individuals started to initiate an International Youth Hostel Dachau, in order to advance the idea for a permanent institution for education and international understanding. Role model was the International Youth Hostel Auschwitz in Polish Os`wiecim, which corner stone had been laid in the same year after long deliberations of the German atonement movement, "Aktion Sühnezeichen". Dachau concentration camp represented, as one of the first camps and as "school of violence", the starting point of the NS terror, covering wide parts of Europe between 1933 and 1945, culminating in the extermination camp "Auschwitz-Birkenau". Therefore it stood to reason to establish International Youth Hostels on both sites.