In a letter addressed to those present at the ceremonial opening, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, wrote: “Hundreds of volunteers from Volkswagen schools support our work by performing a number of tasks including; tidying up the premises of the former camp, maintaining infrastructure at the conservation workshops, preparing buildings for conservation works, and other technical areas of our Museum. It suffices to say that more than 20 thousand pieces of shoes belonging to victims have been secured by your students in recent years, and several other buildings have been prepared for conservation works. These visits perfectly combine voluntary work with lectures, guided tours and historical reflections, which makes them a formation tool that becomes embedded in the awareness of your future employees. I believe, that in this way a truly clever and well-thought ethos of your company is sculpted, capable of uniquely transforming the dramatic past into positive thinking about the future, on a global scale."
"For 30 years, we have developed a deep cooperation in this area that has no analogy in time between companies rooted in the history of the Third Reich and any other institution of memory about the victims. I firmly believe that the result of these efforts is equally well perceived by people at VW and by us, museums of memory” - director Cywiński wrote.
Since 1987, over 3,000 young Germans and Poles, students of the Volkswagen vocational schools have been helping the Auschwitz Memorial. Together, they help in preserving the authenticity of the Auschwitz Memorial: remove weeds, assist in installing barbed wire to the post-camp fence, support specialists of the Memorial in the conservation of shoes belonging to the camp, among others.
Thanks to the partnership with Volkswagen and the International Auschwitz Committee, it was possible to organise several significant international educational events, renovate of lecture halls as well as release several important publications, including a collection of ten books with memories of Auschwitz survivors prepared on the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Transport vehicles donated by the Volkswagen Group supports our conservators, and buses transport hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the world between the former Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps.