International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Volkswagen Apprentices Attend Ceremony Of Remembrance

WOLFSBURG, Germany – January 27, 2009: Six Volkswagen apprentices will be present in the German Bundestag on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 on the occasion of the fourth International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The ceremony of remembrance in Berlin marks the end of a one-week Youth Encounter which the apprentices from Wolfsburg, Salzgitter, Emden, Hanover and Kassel attended at the invitation of the International Auschwitz Committee (IAC).

Together with young people from all over Europe they have devoted their attention to the victims of National Socialism and World War 2. The ceremony of remembrance in the Bundestag will be followed by a podium discussion with the President of the German Bundestag, Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, and Prof. Dr. Gesine Schwan during which the young people will discuss this issue.

Vanessa Semke (18) from Wolfsburg, Jasmina Mitkovic (21) from Salzgitter, Sarah Narjes (22) from Hannover, Andreas Basukow (24) from Kassel, Verena Meyer (20) and Sebastian Zabrocki (24) from Emden visited the former concentration camp in Auschwitz in 2008 under the Auschwitz remembrance program organized by Volkswagen. A total of 75 Volkswagen apprentices from Germany visited the Auschwitz Memorial site last year. They were represented in Berlin by the six apprentices.

Exhibition entitled "Den Bildern Namen geben" opens in Saxon State Parliament
The Saxon State Parliament also commemorated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27 with a memorial ceremony. The commemorative address in the Saxon State Parliament will be given by Christoph Heubner, Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee. Following the ceremony, Saxony’s Minister President Stanislaw Tillich and the President of the Saxon State Parliament Erich Iltgen will open an exhibition of photographs entitled "Den Bildern Namen geben" which presents photographs of the former concentration camp taken by Jerzy Cirka (36), an employee at Volkswagen Polkowice, in September 2008. The exhibition was planned in cooperation with the IAC.

The photographs are supplemented by the thoughts and feelings of young people who, like Cirka, were involved in work at the Auschwitz Memorial: these are Volkswagen apprentices from Wolfsburg, Zwickau and Chemnitz as well as employees from Volkswagen Polkowice and vocational college students from Chocianów.

Youth encounter in Auschwitz
Five times each year, apprentices from Volkswagen travel to the International Youth Meeting Centre in Auschwitz for two weeks where they live and work with young Poles, helping with jobs such as maintenance work at the Auschwitz Memorial site and meeting with holocaust survivors.

Over 1,100 young people from Volkswagen have attended such programs in Poland over the last 22 years. Cooperation between the International Youth Meeting Centre in Auschwitz, the International Auschwitz Committee, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft is supported by both the Volkswagen management and labor representatives. The youth encounters are firmly anchored in the corporate culture of remembrance. The apprentices also helped to set up the "Place of Remembrance of Forced Labor in the Volkswagen Factory" which is open to the public at the plant in Wolfsburg.