Renate Aris Receives the Federal Cross of Merit
On March 3, 2026, our honorary member Renate Aris received the Federal Cross of Merit for her work as a contemporary witness. In its statement, the Saxon State Chancellery described her as a “bridge-builder and sought-after advisor in civic and political youth education” who gives “the warning ‘Never again is now’ a strong, personal voice.” She has also been deeply committed to the rebuilding of the Jewish Community of Chemnitz and to the integration of Jewish immigrants, particularly through the Jewish Women’s Association, which she co-founded.
Renate co-founded the Förderkreis Alter Leipziger Bahnhof with us and has since worked tirelessly toward the establishment of a memorial and meeting place. She is able to convey her experiences of persecution to younger and older generations in a deeply authentic way. Today, knowledge about strategies of exclusion and ideologies of devaluation, as well as empathy for those affected, are needed more urgently than ever. We are deeply grateful to Renate Aris for her tireless commitment.
Renate Aris was born in Dresden in 1935. Together with her parents and her brother, she experienced antisemitic disenfranchisement and persecution under National Socialism. On February 16, 1945, the family was to be deported to a concentration camp. The Allied air raids on Dresden on February 13 and 14 saved the family’s lives. Twenty family members were murdered in the Shoah. Renate Aris and her brother Heinz-Joachim were active in the Jewish community in the former GDR. Renate Aris also served as deputy chair of the board of the Jewish Community of Chemnitz from 1988 to 2003, co-founded the Jewish Women’s Association, and was a member of the presidium of the State Association of Jewish Communities in Saxony.
André Lang Receives the Honorary Coin of the City of Dresden
Our spokesperson André Lang was also honored. On March 21, 2026, Mayor Dirk Hilbert presented him, along with nine other volunteers, with the Honorary Coin of the City of Dresden for “his exemplary commitment to democracy and Jewish life, and for his tireless efforts to preserve the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof Dresden memorial site.” After honorary citizenship and the Medal of Honor, the Honorary Coin is the third-highest distinction awarded by the City of Dresden.
In her laudation, Maria Noth, managing director of the Stiftung Frauenkirche, praised André Lang for helping to “make a forgotten place visible and bring it into the consciousness of our city.” The Alter Leipziger Bahnhof, she said, “has already become a place of remembrance.” Against the background of his own family’s experience of Nazi persecution and exile in Great Britain, his wide-ranging commitment is all the more remarkable. This includes his work against antisemitism, racism, and right-wing extremism in the alliances Herz statt Hetze and Dresden-Nazifrei, in the Förderkreis/Gedenkort Alter Leipziger Bahnhof e. V., in the Jewish Community of Dresden, on the advisory board of the Jewish Religious Community of Dresden, and on the advisory board of TACHELES – Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony.
The Förderkreis thanks André Lang for his inexhaustible energy and solidarity, and for the way he acts as an initiator, organizer, and public advocate for the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof. Through his commitment, he continues to advance the development and establishment of the memorial site despite numerous obstacles.
André Lang accepted the award, as he said, on behalf of Dresden-Nazifrei, Herz statt Hetze, and the Förderkreis ALB. In his subsequent entry in the city’s Golden Book, André Lang repeated his wish that the memorial site may one day open in the renovated Alter Leipziger Bahnhof.