Fighting antisemitism: Volkswagen supports ‚Flashes of Memory’ visits

Volkswagen welcomes employees and trainees for talks and visits of the exhibition ‚Flashes of Memory. Photography during the Holocaust’ at the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin.

- In-depth exhibition experience for winners of the 2023 Sara Frenkel Award

- Integrated element of Volkswagen’s corporate culture of remembrance

- Volkswagen Group is education partner of the exhibition that has been brought from Yad Vashem to Germany for the first time

Driven by the commitment to keep memories of the Holocaust and the understanding of its unfolding alive, Volkswagen supports several visits at 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.

A further visit of ‚Flashes of Memory. Photography during the Holocaust’ ended these days and allowed Volkswagen employees from different Group facilities to see the exhibition, which is still on view 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 in the context of the exhibition that has been on view since March 2023. Further to encounters with photographs 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. Honoring 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 history and making the Group an active ally in the fight against antisemitism, discrimination and racism.

Benita von Maltzahn, Director Cultural Engagement der Volkswagen Group: ‚Due to the strong interest in the exhibition, ‚Flashes of Memory’ remains longer on view in Berlin. It is a blunt evidence of the cruelest result of ruthless antisemitism, and it is a powerful reminder that is needed today more than ever before. Never again, Germany or any other country in the world can 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 ‚Flashes of Memory. Photography during the Holocaust.’, Volkswagen has been serving as 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 regarding the featured visual records. 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 programs are available at no cost.