Austria's parliament
Austria's parliamentiStock

Austria’s Parliament President Wolfgang Sobotka has announced his support for the creation of a Holocaust museum in the country’s capital, Vienna.

Sobotka pledged to campaign for the establishment of the museum on the Morzinplatz memorial site where the Gestapo headquarters was located during World War II, German publication Kleinezeitung reported.

He said that having a memorial for the Mauthausen concentration camp’s victims is not sufficient.

Sobotka pledged his commitment to establishing the museum, echoing the call made by President of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG) Oskar Deutsch, who wants to see the museum in Vienna.

Both men want the museum with a memorial to be located in Morzinplatz.

Sobotka described it as an oversight that his country does not have an interactive Holocaust museum similar to centers in Israel and the US.

"We need not only victim stories, but also perpetrator stories,” he said, according to the news outlet.

The museum’s aim would be to serve as a site for remembrance and education, along with working to increase Holocaust awareness.

Traveling to Prague to give a keynote address at the EU parliamentary speakers conference in Prague, Sobotka stressed that he will highlight the need to act to combat antisemitism. He also presented a study he commissioned on combating antisemitism during the talk that showed a connection between the increase in antisemitism in the EU and conspiracy theories, and urged using education as a way to fight antisemitism.