Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

MEMORIAL WORK IN BAVARIA   9 One of the largest subcamp complexes of Dachau was located in the forested area of the Mühldorfer Hart, in the district of Mühldorf am Inn. Between 1944 and 1945, thousands of concentration camp prisoners were subjected to forced labour there under inhumane conditions. They were forced to build   a gigantic underground armaments facility, a monumental   concrete structure that is still visible in the forest today.   Many of the concentration camp prisoners did not survive the exhaustion, malnutrition and abuse. In 2018, the long-overlooked sites of this forced labour were brought to public attention.With the establishment of   memorial sites at the forest camp and the former mass   grave, a dignified form of remembrance was created in the Mühldorfer Hart for the first time. Today, regular comme­ morative events and themed guided tours are held at   both sites, keeping the memory alive and carrying it into   the present. The opening-up of the original bunker construction site marks another significant step. The monumental ruin has slumbered in the forest for decades, remaining a silent witness to the inhuman plans concocted by the Nazi regime. In order for it to become a safe and permanently accessible place of remem- brance, extensive preparatory work has been needed in recent years. Once the site had been cleared of unexploded ordnance, a complex procedure was initiated to transfer the entire area into the Foundation’s ownership. The path is now clear for the future development of the   bunker site as a place of remembrance and learning.   For more than twenty years, the Bavarian Memorial Foun­ dation has been responsible for Bavaria’s central places of   remembrance. Alongside the major concentration camp   memorial sites in Dachau and Flossenbürg, this responsibility   now extends to 75 concentration camp cemeteries and gravesites, as well as numerous memorial sites at former subcamps. The Bavarian Memorial Foundation’s mission is to keep the memory of the victims of National Socialism alive, to preserve the traces of history and to create places of education and encounter. The coronavirus pandemic, in particular, presented new challenges.We had to cancel our commemorative events or develop digital formats, and international encounters were scarcely possible – and yet we have managed to steadily   continue our work at the memorial sites over the past five years. Through new projects, investments and innovative forms of education, we are now helping to ensure that remembrance remains a living practice for future generations. At the heart   of this work are the major redevelopment projects at the Dachau Memorial and the Flossenbürg Memorial. At a time when the memory of National Socialist crimes is   increasingly at risk of fading from public consciousness, memorial work and educational initiatives are more impor- tant than ever. One particularly striking aspect of this work is our exploration of the former subcamps of Dachau and Flossenbürg. They formed an extensive network of more than 200 sites across Bavaria. Though often inconspicuous and barely visible in today’s urban or rural landscape, they were places of suffering, violence and death. Memorial work in Bavaria 2020–2025 Bridging the past and the present Dr Jascha März, Head of Research Services and Archives, Bavarian Memorial Foundation