Volkswagen plant Wolfsburg: wreath-laying on Sunday, January 27 to commemorate the victims of National Socialism.
- Wreath-laying at memorial stone for forced labor victims
- Film showing at Group archives “Bei uns nichts Neues”
- Film to be followed by discussion with author and director
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Sunday, January 27, 2019 Volkswagen is commemorating the victims of murder, persecution and forced labor during the National Socialist dictatorship with a remembrance event at the Wolfsburg plant.
The event is to start at 2:30 p.m. at the memorial stone for the victims of forced labor at Südstraße, entrance 2. There, representatives of the company including plant manager Dr. Stefan Loth and Dieter Landenberger, Head of Volkswagen Heritage, as well as members of the Works Council and the Young People’s and Apprentices Representative Committee, will lay wreaths. The stone commemorates forced labor at the plant from 1940 to 1945.
Following the ceremony, the film “Bei uns nichts Neues” by Shimon Lev and Astrid Vehstedt will be shown in the Group Archive Forum. The Israeli artist and the German director and producer of the film will then be available for a chaired discussion.
In the 2014 film, residents of the house at Thomasiusstraße 11 in Berlin read letters and postcards sent by the Jewish family Löw from the same house in Berlin to their son Willy between 1940 and 1943. Willy Löw, the father of author Shimon Lev, was the only member of the family to survive the Holocaust, in Great Britain. His parents had sent the 16-year-old there with a kindertransport. The increasingly perilous situation of the Jewish family is clear from the letters and postcards. Willy’s parents and his sister Liane, who wrote most of the letters, were deported in May 1943 to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. The letters tell a disturbing, harrowing story. Just like the “stumbling blocks” in front of the house, they keep the memory of the Löw family alive.
On Sunday, January 27 access to the plant area will be available from 2 p.m. via the Sandkamp gate. External visitors (minimum age: 12) are requested to register by email to history@volkswagen.de with their forename and surname by Thursday, January 24, 2019 and to bring their identity cards with them.
Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27, 2019 is the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by the Soviet Red Army. Since 2005, this date has been observed throughout the world as Holocaust Remembrance Day on the basis of a UN resolution.
Note:
This text and images are available at www.volkswagen-newsroom.com for downloading. In the case of photos concerning the film “Bei uns nichts Neues“, please indicate “Copyright Shimon Lev”.