I fully endorse the above comments of my two fellow volunteers and wonder for the umpteenth time why it was necessary to set up this new Forum. It turns out once again that I am not the only one of the “old hands” (I’ve been a volunteer since June 2020) who considers this change to be a near fiasco.
I have already expressed my criticism of the new Forum a couple of times, but it is like shouting in the desert.
Not only the numbers of experienced volunteers are shrinking (leaving the sinking ship?), but also of the moderators at Arolsen. Moreover, the turn over there is now taking on worrying proportions, which I consider to be a sign on the wall.
I really hope that Arolsen will take the criticism of Routebleue and Moewenzahn to heart.
I for myself just keep plodding along because I feel a moral obligation not only towards the victims, but also towards the Joods Monument, the Kazerne Dossin, the Mémorial de la Shoah and some Holocaust historians and researchers with whom I’ve been working closely for several years, partly on the basis of the files I process for ENC. This is the only positive element of the ENC project that I can think of at the moment: it is leading to concrete results (listing victims on the sites concerned that were previously unknown, adding corrections and retracing victims whose fate is still unknown more than 80 years after the start of WWII). Like Moewenzahn, I have serious doubts about Arolsen’s processing of our comments.
Love & hugs to all of you!
(Larus: we’ll keep in touch: check your private mail!)