English
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In September 2007 approximately a dozen people from Mössingen and the surrounding area founded the "Löwenstein-Forschungsverein": this grass-roots network of individuals faced a long and difficult search requiring detailed research, detective work, and above all perseverance. Its statement of purpose – entitled "Ermutigung zur Verantwortung – Erinnerungen an nachwirkende Vergangenheiten" ("To encourage the acceptance of responsibility – To remember the ongoing pasts") – includes the following points:
"We want to contribute to making the unacknowledged historical legacy known. With tact and sensitivity the members want to raise awareness for the facts, to promote openness, and to encourage discussion. It is not the goal of the initiators to make accusations or to impute guilt. Nor are their efforts directed against anyone or anything. Instead, they understand the encouragement of the acceptance of responsibility as a process of consciously confronting the past in order to create a stronger basis for life together in the present and in the future.
The members will propose and support the establishment of a specific place of remembrance for the Löwenstein brothers in Mössingen and will also attempt to find relatives and descendants of the Löwenstein family. They will then be invited to visit Mössingen.
This is by no means an attempt to put the past behind us but to better enable us to take reponsibility for the present on the basis of the continuous presence of the past. The history of the PAUSA and the history of the Löwensteins are part of the history of Mössingen and should become an integral part of our common, nonsimultaneous future."
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