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2024 Obermayer Awards

Dirk_Erkelenz
Dirk Erkelenz (Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia): This teacher changed the culture of his high school in Cologne by encouraging and training students to do research that commemorates Jews who attended the school and were victims of the Nazis.
Anneke_De_Rudder
Anneke de Rudder (Bad Bevensen, Lower Saxony): A provenance researcher and historian now based at the Hamburg State and University Library, she has done exhaustive research on the lives of Jews in the Lower Saxony town of Lüneburg and elsewhere for many years.
Marie_Rolshoven
Marie Rolshoven (Berlin): She and her late mother initiated a program that encourages Germans to research the lives of people who once lived in their homes — Jews and others persecuted during the Nazi period or members of the resistance — and then share what they have learned.
Christoph_Mauny
Christoph Mauny (Weimar, Thuringia): He has helped create a range of innovative remembrance projects, many of them using new media and involving the active participation of young people. The projects focus mainly on the towns of Gotha and Ohrdruf, both in a region where the far right has growing influence, and on the subcamp system of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Margit_Sachse
Margit Sachse (Rossdorf, Hesse): This history teacher and biographer has inspired her students—and alumni—in Darmstadt to engage in local Jewish remembrance projects for more than a decade.
Exil_eV
EXIL e.V. (Eberswalde, Brandenburg): In 1997, in a city where neo-Nazis were very visible and vocal, this organization was founded by courageous punk rockers who preserved two barracks of a former subcamp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Katharina_Oguntoye
Katharina Oguntoye (Berlin): As a historian, author, and community leader since the 1980s, Ms. Oguntoye has helped foster among German mainstream society an awareness of Black Germans and recognition of the history and identity of Black Germans.
Date/Time
Format
Online
Admissions
General: Free
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Widen the Circle

The Obermayer Awards, January 29, 2024


Germans who do exceptional work to keep alive the memory of Jewish communities destroyed by the Nazis and use local history to fight antisemitism and other forms of bigotry will receive the 2024 Obermayer Awards. The awards will be presented on January 29, 2024 at the Rotes Rathaus in a ceremony hosted by the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, and the President of the Berlin Parliament, Cornelia Seibeld. The annual ceremony has taken place for more than two decades, and is a prominent official highlight of the observance of international Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany’s capital.

The Obermayer Awards, organized and administered by Widen the Circle, honor German individuals and groups that have illuminated the vital role Jews played in German society for hundreds of years before the Nazi era. The awards also honor those who use the lessons of history to fight against modern-day prejudice and racism (including antisemitism), and who foster the kind of understanding among different groups that prevents prejudice from taking root. 


Broadcasted live from the Berlin Red Town Hall on the websites of the Berlin Parliament and Widen the Circle at 18:30 CET/12:30 EST on January 29, 2024. Watch on Widen the Circle.

About the Awardees

Dirk Erkelenz

Anneke de Rudder

Marie Rolshoven

Christoph Mauny

Margit Sachse

EXIL e.V.

Katharina Oguntoye

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