Jacob Bauer CTHGC

Jacob’s Story

Hello world, my name is Jacob Anthony Bauer, I am 20 years old and from Austria. At only 19 years old, I made the decision to come Cape Town  as part of my “Gedenkdienst”/Service Board to continue an ongoing journey that so far brought me a lot of knowledge and experience. The “Gedenkdienst” which can be translated loosely as “Holocaust Memorial Service” has the core idea that young Austrians take up responsibility for their, and especially Austrian history focusing on confrontating the atrocities and crimes of the Holocaust. It seeks to give any person the opportunity to work in museums, archives, educational institutions and maybe most important, in Holocaust Survivor Centres all around the globe. We are meant to strengthen the memory of the victims, what they witnessed and experienced and to carry on the confrontation with our past as Austrians but also take up the individual responsibility as the next generations. 

Everything started when I moved to Budapest, Hungary, last year, also as part of my Service Abroad. In Budapest, I worked as a fellow  international minority rights organization called the Tom Lantos Institute. Developed in 2011 after the death of Tom Lantos, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and first and only Holocaust Survivor ever elected to the American Congress, it carries on his legacy of working for Human and Minority Rights. 

My work at the Institute consisted of writing articles to inform other organizations on what is happening in the world of minority rights and doing research on topics like policy experts or Secondary Education on Antisemitism whilst also helping the staff wherever I could. My proudest achievement at the Tom Lantos Institute, however, was the writing of a blog about a recent case called the Girja case in which a reindeer herding community/village sued the Swedish government, looking at how the law applied, in that case, can be seen as a breakthrough in the field of minority rights. 

Human Rights always played a vital part in my life whilst  I was growing up. After having traveled extensively and  having a mother who at some point worked for the EU Commission, I was always incredibly grateful for the freedoms and rights have been given and  the standard of living I get to live. These rights are not natural or God-given, but the result of yearlong fights for freedom and democracy. 

However, in many countries’ freedom is extremely limited and only afforded to  a certain group of people. Human rights and Minority rights abuses, the violation of your personal freedom occurs  every day and sometimes (e.g., Girja case) even in front of your own door. 

Coming back to my work here in Cape Town and the topic of the Holocaust: human rights abuses occurred many times in history, also with the Holocaust. When you grow up in Austria, you are in the centre of action coming to what happened in history, and I see this as a commitment I have to make to the world. Many people in Austria have had enough of Austrian history, but I always wanted to take it one step further than just reading books and watching documentaries. It is easy to learn about history, but to understand it and to help make amends for it needs a lot more time and hard work. 

Making amends for something is a very broad statement that I would like to split up into two different ways. Firstly, we need to commemorate and hold up the memory of what happened. Looking at the past and making sure that it’s never forgotten and  the people who had to suffer aren’t  forgotten. Secondly, we need to take lessons from our history: “What happened, why did it happen, and how did it happen”. We need to look into the future and work on preventing such atrocities from ever happening again. Together both form like a Yin and Yang, a symbiosis for a better living. 

Now you know a lot about my beliefs and ideologies, but you do not know much about my life. I went to High School in Vienna, where I attended a lot of optional subjects and was engaged in school politics. I attended Debating Classes and worked on several certificates. I took a vital interest in geography and history. My special interest  has always has been the Middle East with its complexity and diversity. At one point, I even gave lectures to one of my school’s classes about the Arab Spring. 

In my final two years, I was engaged in the student council, in the end as the  Deputy chairperson. During this time I also attended  Model UN Vienna. Firstly, debating about textile fabrics as a representative of Sweden, secondly debating about Covid-19 as a representative of Vietnam in the UN Security Council, even before the first lockdown outside of Asia and with little to no cases in Europe. 

In my final year, a friend told me about the Service Abroad. The idea of doing your Social Service abroad immediately aroused my attention, and I applied. During my preparation, I worked in many fields at my organization. The last and most current position, which I hold up to this day, is being the Head of our Educational Team.  

After my final exams, I started studying Economics and Social Sciences, with the intention to give a different and new view on Economics, which is often seen as a field of mainly money greedy people. 

I take great pleasure in writing and holding lectures, and I hope my blog gave you an insight into my life and what its journey has taken me so far. 

Thank you for reading.