Closeness to Nazis

Rosenkranz criticized for Holocaust commemoration

President of the National Council Walter Rosenkranz(Bild: AFP)

The fact that National Council President Walter Rosenkranz (FPÖ) is taking part in a parliamentary event on Holocaust Remembrance Day is causing resentment. The Jewish Austrian Students (JöH) and the Gedenkdienst association have called on the SPÖ, Greens and NEOS not to take part in the discussion.

Instead, the MPs should join the ceremony on Heldenplatz. Rosenkranz is "right-wing extremist" and has paid homage to "convicted Nazi criminals", said Alon Ishay, President of the Jewish Austrian University Students. With Rosenkranz, there can be no commemoration of the Holocaust. "We will not be a fig leaf for the FPÖ".

The Gedenkdienst association also criticized a commemoration "side by side with Walter Rosenkranz". "Then as now, the FPÖ cultivates a revisionist culture of remembrance and a problematic approach to the National Socialist past," it said in the statement.

Does not take the floor itself
Monday marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The President of the National Council has invited people to an event in Parliament. The plan is for pupils to discuss with contemporary witness Erika Freeman. The politician will not take the floor himself.

Rosenkranz was prevented from laying a wreath for the victims of the November pogroms at the end of 2024.(Bild: EVA MANHART)

Rosenkranz was already prevented by the JöH from laying a wreath at Judenplatz for the victims of the November pogroms. The Jewish Community (IKG) had explicitly not invited him to the event at the Shoah Wall of Names.