Irmtrud Wojak

The historian and biographer of the lawyer Dr Fritz Bauer has been working for many years to ensure that the voices of the survivors’ resistance remain alive.

Startseite The founder

In memory of Fritz Bauer

"Never again!" is more than a reminder not to forget the crimes in our history. What is needed is an active "Yes!" to the inviolability of human dignity.

Dr Irmtrud Wojak

The founder Dr Irmtrud Wojak

Historian, curator and human rights campaigner

Irmtrud Wojak comes from the Ruhr area. Even at school, she was interested in the causes of social inequality and human rights violations. She wanted to do something about it, studied history and political science at the Ruhr University Bochum, became involved in the city of Bochum’s twinning programme with Boaco/Santa Lucia in Nicaragua and helped to set up an orphanage for children whose parents were victims of the US war against the Central American country. Her commitment to Chile solidarity took her to Latin America again and again from 1989 onwards.

In Nicaragua and Chile, and later also Uruguay and Argentina, Irmtrud Wojak experienced the reality of poverty and violence and learnt about the courage of people who, for completely different reasons, had to fight for their rights and did so. There in Latin America, she also wrote her dissertation on the political opponents of the Nazi regime and the survivors of the Holocaust who were persecuted by the Nazis.

A journey through time

Milestones on the path of Dr Irmtrud Wojak

Her journey took her from Bochum to Latin America and Israel, and later to the USA. Her career took her to Frankfurt, Bad Arolsen and Munich. She soon realised that she wanted to create a place where Fritz Bauer’s legacy could be carried on.

1993

After years of research in Latin America, dissertation at the Ruhr University Bochum on Jewish and political emigration to Chile before National Socialism.

1994 / 1998

Co-founder and chairwoman of the “Remembering for the Future” association. The citizens’ initiative organises the invitation of Holocaust survivors from Bochum and Wattenscheid to their former home communities.

As a scient. Research associate at the Fritz Bauer Institute together with Joachim Perels publication of selected writings by Fritz Bauer “The Humanity of the Legal Order”

2001

Publication of the first study on the records of the Nazi perpetrator Adolf Eichmann in prison in Israel and the interview he gave to a former SS officer in exile in Argentina. For the first time, Fritz Bauer’s decisive role in Eichmann’s arrest becomes known to a wider public.

2004 / 2008

2004 Curator of the first exhibition on the Auschwitz trial as deputy director of the Fritz Bauer Institute. 2008 Habilitation with the first biography of Fritz Bauer at the Leibniz University of Hanover. At the same time, she set up the library and research department at the International Tracing Service, now the Arolsen Archives.

2009 / 2011

Founding director of the Munich NS Documentation Centre.

2013 / 2017

Establishment of the BUXUS FOUNDATION and start of research work for an interactive library with stories of resistance and survival. The project is trialled at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute.