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Award for Gessen: Honour for reporting on Russia
Photo: Morris MacMatzen / Getty Images
The controversial awarding of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought to Masha Gessen took place on Saturday in Bremen in front of a good 50 guests. The event, originally planned for Friday in the town hall, had been cancelled after criticism of Gessen's statements. Now it has been made up for on a smaller scale.
On Saturday morning, those responsible had once again moved the venue at short notice, it had already been changed once before. Finally, the award ceremony took place in a small event room in the Steintorviertel. Four police officers secured the event.
With the postponement, the sponsoring association reacted to the withdrawal of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Bremen Senate from the award ceremony. It was triggered by statements made by Gessen in an article in the US magazine »The New Yorker«, in which Gessen had compared the situation in Gaza with the Jewish ghettos in occupied Europe.
In an interview with SPIEGEL shortly before the award ceremony, Gessen said of the comparison: "Of course, a 1:1 comparison is absurd. But if there are potential comparables, we have to ask ourselves what we can do to prevent more civilians from dying." Anyone who pretends that the Holocaust cannot be compared to anything and therefore cannot repeat itself cannot prevent another catastrophe.
The jury's decision in favor of Masha Gessen was made in early summer. It was said at the time that Gessen's journalistic commitment to reporting on Russia was decisive.
TheHannah Arendt Prize is intended to honour people who, in Arendt's tradition, contribute to public political thought and action.
has/dpa