The University of Augsburg’s Mietek Pemper Award for Reconciliation and International Understanding recognises and honours outstanding commitment to peace and reconciliation. This year’s award went to Farida Khalaf. The Iraqi human rights activist is one of around 6,500 people to survive enforced slavery by ISIS and the genocide of Yazidis, which took place in August 2014. She vividly describes her experience in her book The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story, which she published together with the journalist Andrea C. Hoffmann in 2016.

She gives courage and encouragement to the weakest in our society. Congratulations to Farida Khalaf for winning the University of Augsburg’s 2024 Mietek Pemper Award for Reconciliation and International Understanding! As a Yazidi survivor of enslavement by ISIS and the genocide of Yazidis, Farida Khalaf is a fighter for human rights, a voice for justice, and a great ambassador for peace. With charisma and courage, she demonstrates the huge difference that the commitment of one individual can make. She is a role model for us all,” said Markus Blume, Bavarian State Minister for Sciences and the Arts, at the award ceremony.
“The University of Augsburg is proud of this important award, which on the one hand honours Mieczysław Pemper and his life’s work, as an honorary citizen of the City of Augsburg and the university, and on the other hand honours people who put all their energy into working for humanity, for reconciliation, and fair coexistence. All our award winners have three things in common with Farida Khalaf: a tireless commitment, unconventional thinking, and the willingness to face personal danger,” said Prof Sabine Doering-Manteuffel, the president of the University of Augsburg.

Advocating for survivors of genocide

Since she fled, Farida Khalaf has been an important part of a global campaign that aims to bring perpetrators to justice, gain international recognition of the genocide of Yazidis, and raise awareness about the crimes committed.

In 2018, together with other survivors, Khalaf founded the NGO Farida Global e.V., which she chairs. The NGO aims to raise awareness about the stories and needs of those affected. It advocates for the rights and interests of survivors of genocide, and in particular for women and girls who are or have been exposed to the most serious human rights abuses or conflict-related sexual violence.
 

The Mietek Pemper Award

The University of Augsburg’s Mietek Pemper Award for Reconciliation and International Understanding is sponsored by the Augsburg entrepreneur Dr Georg Haindl. It was created in 2007 in memory of the life’s work of Mieczysław Pemper, an honorary citizen of the City of Augsburg and the university. Pemper (1920-2011) was a prisoner in the Krakow-Płaszów concentration camp. Assigned as a personal scribe to the camp commandant Amon Göth, Pemper risked his life in collaboration with the German factory owner Oskar Schindler to save the lives of 1,100 Jews from a certain death at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Pemper had the life-saving idea of classifying Schindler’s company as “decisive for victory,” thus protecting all of its employees.

At the same time, the award ties in with the aspiration of Augsburg to be a city of peace, a legacy of the religious Peace of Augsburg Settlement of 1555. The award aims to foster and cultivate this legacy in fitting with contemporary times. In addition to the Augsburg Peace Award, which has been awarded since 1985 and which honours achievements that promote understanding between religions and denominations, the University of Augsburg’s Mietek Pemper Award for Reconciliation and International Understanding is dedicated to honouring outstanding, active, sustainable and unconventional achievements in dealing with secular conflicts in politics and society.

Since its establishment in 2006, the award has honoured high-level actors in international politics, including the former chief prosecutor of both the International Criminal Tribunal of the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Carla Del Ponte, and the former US Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke. It has also honoured active and committed actors from civil society, including Dieudonné Kibinakanwa (director of the Great Lakes Peacebuilding Initiative), Teresita Gaviria (chair of the organisation “Caminos de Esperanza. Madres de la Candelaria”), Luigi Ciotti (founder of the anti-mafia organisation “Libera”), Selline Korir (co-founder and head of “Rural Women Peace Link”), as well as Khaled Abu Awwad and Nir Oren (Parents Circle Families Forum). 
 

The Jury

The jury, consisting of the sponsor of the award, the president of the University of Augsburg, the rabbi of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Augsburg-Schwaben, the Bavarian State Minister of Sciences and the Arts, and the lord mayor of the City of Augsburg, awards the University of Augsburg’s Mietek Pemper Award for Reconciliation and International Understanding to contemporary figures who, like Pemper, have shown personal commitment to reconciliation and international understanding.

Further information about the award can be found here: www.uni-augsburg.de/de/ueber-uns/ehrungen/preise/pemper-preis/

Caption: From left to right: the award’s sponsor, Dr Georg Haindl, the president of the University of Augsburg, Prof Sabine Doering-Manteuffel, this year’s award winner, Farida Khalaf, the Bavarian State Minister for Sciences and the Arts, Markus Blume, lord mayor of the City of Augsburg, Eva Weber, and member of the jury, rabbi Tom Kučera. © University of Augsburg