Poland's President Duda honored Martha Gammer and Rudolf Haunschmied

December 17th, 2024

The two founding members of the Gusen Memorial Committee (GMC), Martha Gammer and Prof. Rudolf A. Haunschmied, were awarded the Virtus et Fraternitas Medal on December 17, 2024 at Belweder Palace in Warsaw by Minister Piotr Cwik on behalf of President Andrzej Duda.

Martha Gammer and Rudolf Haunschmied received this high Polish state decoration from President Andrzej Duda on the suggestion of the Director of the Witold Pilecky Institute in Warsaw, Prof. Dr. hab. Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, and the Polish Council for the Protection of Memory for their decades of service to researching and preserving the memory of the former KL Gusen complex of concentration camps, in which the largest group of victims had been deportees from Poland.

In addition to the decades of research work, the creation of numerous relevant publications and the care of survivors and their relatives, the intensive cooperation with the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Vienna, which led to the purchase of parts of the former KL Gusen complex of concentration camps by the Republic of Austria in 2021, was particularly highlighted.

It was also gratifying that the Austrian Ambassador to Poland, His Excellency Andreas Stadler, personally congratulated the two honorees of the GMC personally.

At the end of the ceremony, the chairman of Klub Mauthausen-Gusen (club of former political prisoners of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps) in Warsaw, Mr. Jacek Tarasiewicz, and Martha Gammer gave speeches of thanks which deeply moved all participants.

The special websiste and the commemorative publication for the award ceremony can be accessed directly on the website of the Witold Pilecky Institute in Warsaw.

A photo gallery of the award ceremony can be viewed on the official website of the President of the Republic of Poland.

The short film created by the Witold Pilecky Institute to honor Martha Gammer and Rudolf Haunschmied can be accessed via Facebook.

A video documentation of the full ceremony can be accessed via Youtube (including from minute 40:10 also the impressive address of thanks given by Mrs. Martha Gammer in German and from minute 55:28 the address of the chairman of Klub Mauthausen-Gusen Warszawa,  Mr. Jacek Tarasiewicz).

A television report by the Polish television station TVP 3 from December 17, 2024 in the news program TELEWIZYJNY KURIER WARSZAWSKI can be found here from minute 06:40 in Polish.

 

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