Projects

What do our individual professional actions mean for others? How can our professional practice have negative consequences for people, and how can such consequences be prevented? The seminar offers participants the opportunity to examine these questions based on a well-researched historical example. Topf & Sons’ complicity in the mass crimes committed in the Nazi camps shows the inhumane consequences that ordinary work in a company can have.

The participants begin by taking a closer look at what the Topf & Sons company’s business relations with the SS entailed. In small groups, and with the aid of worksheets, they examine the motives of the company owners, engineers, fitters and sales staff, these persons’ knowledge of the crimes being committed in the camps, and their unquestioning collaboration with the SS. In the reflection on connivance and complicity within the framework of everyday professional life, the seminar provides impulses for thinking about the responsibility of every individual, and for recognizing for oneself and for society when ethical boundaries are violated.

Groups are requested to register in advance. This offer is suitable for youth and adult education groups. Interested teachers can request pointers on how to integrate the guided tour in school instruction in various subjects.

Please contact us so that our educational staff can take your specific wishes, questions and the group’s knowledge level into account in preparation for your visit.

This project is offered in the following languages:

• German
• English
• French