Eighty years ago, on January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” This exhibition, created by the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Site, shares information about the Holocaust, exposing the motives of the perpetrators and commemorating the victims. It focuses on the Wannsee Conference, its participants and the Nazi persecution policies that led to the deportations of Jews from all over Europe and their subsequent murder.
The perspective of the victims conveys the vast dimensions of the crimes. It also shows the development and current work of the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial and Educational Site. The murder of the European Jews marks the limits of human civilization; it was the total negation of human rights and human dignity and the ultimate crime of modernity, in which industrial killing techniques were employed to wipe out entire communities. As a consequence of this crime, a universal concept of human rights was born.
Contact:
Susanne Hillman
shillman@ucsd.edu