Berlin, November 30, 2023 – Driven by the commitment to keep memories of the Holocaust and the understanding of its unfolding alive, Volkswagen is supporting several visits to the Museum für Fotografie which is hosting ‘Flashes of Memory’. The exhibition had been developed by the World Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem and presents photographs and films documenting the Shoah from the view of perpetrators, victims and liberators.
These visits allowed Volkswagen employees from different Group facilities to see the exhibition, which is still on show until January 28, 2024, at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin. The visits in November 2023 and January 2024 are a joint effort of the Group and its employees to deepen the remembrance work. As well as having the chance to seephotographs and films which are visual records of deportations of Jewish people, living conditions in Jewish ghettos and the liberation of concentration camps, the guests also meet Dieter Landenberger, Volkswagen’s Head of Heritage, to discuss perspectives for a vivid and strong culture of remembrance and the ongoing need to fight racism, discrimination and antisemitism. The exhibition features visual documents whose creators were not only Jewish photographers but also Nazi personnel and allied soldiers. They belong to the collection of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center Yad Vashem.
The Volkswagen Group has also invited students from the Carl Hahn School in Wolfsburg to travel to Berlin and visit the exhibition. Responding to the need to better understand what it means to be forced to flee and how help can be provided to refugees, the group of students initiated the ‘People help the People’ project. Honouring this initiative, Volkswagen’s Youth and Trainee Council together with Vocational Training representatives presented the Sara Frenkel Award for respect, tolerance and civic courage to the project team. The award is named after Sara Frenkel, a former forced laborer and a Holocaust survivor, who encouraged numerous young people to get involved with remembrance work, and who led a life-long battle against antisemitism.
The exhibition visits extend Volkswagen’s wide-ranging remembrance work that is based on the commitment to learn from the company’s history and make the Group an active ally in the fight against antisemitism, discrimination and racism.
Benita von Maltzahn, Director of Cultural Engagement at the Volkswagen Group, said: ‘Due to the strong interest in the exhibition, ‘Flashes of Memory’ remains on view in Berlin. It is evidence of the cruelest result of ruthless antisemitism, and it is a powerful reminder that is needed today more than ever before. Never again, can Germany or any other country in the world accept antisemitism. As partner of the exhibition, we have helped to create a platform for the wider public as well as for our employees to engage with this topic and the learnings.’
Since the opening of the exhibition in March 2023, Volkswagen has been its education partner. In this role, Volkswagens supported the development and implementation of ‘Ask Me!’ and ‘Close Up!’. On Thursday afternoons, Friday afternoons and weekend afternoons, the ‘Ask Me!’ format invites visitors to address guides with all their relevant questions; and once a month, ‘Close Up!’ allows exhibition visitors to meet scientists and researchers who share their views on special topics addressed by the exhibition in public talks. Both programmes are available at no cost.
