Peršmanhof: Never again, and then this... a frightening signal from the authority branch

The Peršmanhof in Carinthia, once the site of crimes committed by the Nazis and now a memorial to the resistance of carinthian slovenes against the Nazi regime, became the scene of an unbelievable incident July 27, 2025 – this time in form of a police deployment who took action against a youth camp explicitly dedicated to the anti-fascist resistance. The fact that this incident took place in the 80th anniversary year of the end of World War II and at this memorial site is more than fatal symbolism/appears to be fatal symbolism and gives cause for deep concern – especially among those who oppose fascist tendencies.

The “executing police” in Carinthia seem to have forgotten or simply ignored the fact that just a year earlier, the Austrian president and the governor of Carinthia spoke at this very location about how we "must always keep history in mind in order to learn from it. So that these terrible crimes will never be repeated. So that hatred and contempt for humanity will never again be used as political instruments."

The reasons available to date for the equally frightening and disproportionate large-scale operation and the corresponding actions of the police, who asserts to justify this actions by referring to illegal camping, leave us all the more stunned. We therefore declare our solidarity with the participants and organizers of the summer camp and support the demands made by the Cultural Council, the Vienna Concentration Camp Association, the Initiative for Minorities, SOS Balkanroute, and the Green Party for a comprehensive investigation into this unacceptable ursupation of power.

Senate & Rectorate of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna