Guided tour of the Köpenicker Blutwoche memorial site

“Memory must not end; it must also urge future generations to remain vigilant.” With this appeal, former German President Roman Herzog proclaimed January 27 a nationwide day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in 1996. On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau near the town of Oświęcim in occupied Poland.

The district memorial Köpenicker Blutwoche (Köpenick Week of Blood) commemorates an unprecedented wave of arrests and violence by the National Socialists, which became known as the "Köpenick Week of Blood". From June 21 to 26, 1933, units of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) abducted and abused several hundred political dissidents, Jews and women, leaving at least 23 people dead.


The "Köpenick Week of Blood" is representative of the phase in which the National Socialists seized power and used intimidation, torture and murder in a targeted and public manner. The violence did not take place in secret, but in public and before the eyes of fellow citizens.

IN GERMAN