Participatory Reading on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day
27. January 2026 – all day
On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Ravensbrück Memorial Site invites you to its annual participatory reading on 27 January 2026. This year’s focus is on the ‘14 f 13’ murder campaign in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The memorial day commemorates the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by the Red Army in 1945. For several years now, the Ravensbrück Memorial has organized a joint reading on this day from the memories and testimonies of survivors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Each year, the event is dedicated to a specific historical topic or a particular phase of the camp’s history. The script is always based on the focus of the memorial service in the German Bundestag. Both individual stories and the collective experiences of those imprisoned in Ravensbrück are to bear witness in the readings. The aim is to present the effects of persecution and prison conditions from constantly changing perspectives, to allow voices that have received little attention to date to have their say and also to highlight moments of resistance and solidarity among the prisoners.
In 1941, the SS leadership decided to extend the murder of the sick, known as ‘euthanasia,’ to concentration camp prisoners. This first centrally planned murder campaign against prisoners was given the code name ‘14 f 13’ after its file number.
From late 1941 to early 1942, SS camp doctors and external experts selected around 1,600 women and 300 men for murder at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In addition to the sick and those unfit for work, Jewish prisoners and some politically unpopular individuals and those stigmatised as ‘anti-social’ were also singled out. Between February and April 1942, they were transported to the ‘euthanasia’ facility in Bernburg and murdered with carbon monoxide gas.
The script is based on a collage of texts from memoirs, personal accounts and archive materials. Former prisoners themselves have their say in letters, diary excerpts, statements from post-war trials and other personal documents.
The readings invite all interested parties to join together in making the voices of the victims and survivors heard. The event offers an opportunity to pause together and actively take responsibility for remembrance.
Programme:
- 11:30 a.m.: Welcome by Dr Matthias Heyl, Deputy Director of the Ravensbrück Memorial Site
- 11:45 a.m.: Start of the reading
- 12:45 p.m.: Joint commemoration at Schwedtsee (followed by an opportunity to chat over coffee)
- From 1:30 p.m.: Guided tour of the grounds
Please register by 23 January 2026 at paedagogik@ravensbrueck.de. The text passages will be sent out the following week.
At 7:30 p.m. on the same day, there will also be a participatory online reading via Zoom. Please also register by 23 January 2026.