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'Work at this place has become a key task for our employees,' Volkswagen CEO says
Photo: Israel Bardugo
Auschwitz. Long-term contribution
Photo: Israel Bardugo

Volkswagen donates €1M to Auschwitz site

German auto giant, which used concentration camp internees and prisoners of war as slave labor in its factories during World War II, says it has been sending apprentices to Youth Meeting Center next to Auschwitz for more than 20 years

German auto giant Volkswagen said Tuesday it was donating €1 million (about $1.3 million) to the Auschwitz International Youth Meeting Center, an educational site situated next to the World War II Nazi death camp in today's Poland.

 

"With this donation, Volkswagen intends to make a long-term contribution to safeguarding the high quality of educational work and the modernizations required at the center," the carmaker said in a statement.

 

VW said it has been sending apprentices to the Auschwitz International Youth Meeting Center for more than 20 years "to contribute to the maintenance of the Auschwitz memorial sites together with young people from Poland."

 

"Work at this place that is so deeply embedded in the collective memory has become a key task for our employees," said Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn.

 

"These experiences shape us all. They have become a key element in our corporate culture. Above all, our donation expresses our gratitude for these experiences," he said.

 

During World War II, the carmaker used concentration camp internees and prisoners of war as slave labor in its factories.

 

It contributed in the 1990s to a fund to compensate people who had worked as slaves and opened up its archives to independent historians to investigate its involvement in the darkest part of German history.

 

Around 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the Auschwitz death camp between 1940 and 1945.

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.12.13, 13:20
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