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Fifty groups of students from Baden-Württemberg to visit the Auschwitz Museum online in 2026
In 2026, fifty student groups from Baden-Württemberg will visit the Auschwitz Museum online through the platform "Auschwitz. In front of your eyes". This is a result of a special agreement signed by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport of this German federal state and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
Baden-Württemberg is the first German federal state to approve such extensive use of the "Auschwitz. In Front of Your Eyes" platform, which enables live, guided online tours of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.
"It is distressing how many young people know almost nothing about the Holocaust, this monstrous crime against humanity. Memory and understanding give our younger generations the ability to recognize emerging threats and oppose them. Together with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which I thank for excellent cooperation, we will enable our schools to gain this powerful understanding through virtual visits to the Auschwitz Memorial Site," said Theresa Schopper, Minister of Culture of Baden-Württemberg.
The tours are conducted live. In addition, the educator uses multimedia materials, archival photographs, artworks, and documents, along with testimonies from Survivors. The application also allows interaction with the guide and the ability to ask questions. All this enables a deeper understanding of history and its contexts despite the lack of physical presence at the Memorial.
"This agreement aligns with the mission of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. Our primary goal, of course, is to protect the Memorial's authenticity by funding conservation work. We also strive to secure additional funding to support a wide range of educational activities. Baden-Württemberg, as the first federal state of Germany, has decided to provide systemic funding for modern historical education, ensuring that students have direct contact with education conducted from an authentic historical space," said Wojciech Soczewica, Director General of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
In his opinion, cooperation with Baden-Württemberg has the character of a model project that may become a new standard in European education on Auschwitz and the Holocaust.
"This is only the beginning. We will encourage other German federal states and governments of other countries to undertake similar initiatives. Joint financing of access to knowledge about history conveyed directly from the preserved Memorial is a special investment in responsible education, designed to build future generations’ resilience to falsehood, relativization, and the manipulation of history," he emphasized.
The agreement covers not only the financing of the online visits themselves but also the pedagogical preparation of the schools participating in the project. The institutions will conduct preparatory and follow-up classes, and the entire project will undergo a detailed evaluation, the results of which will be used to refine and expand it.
The agreement with Baden-Württemberg is the result of cooperation between the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education of the German federal states. In October last year, a presentation of the "Auschwitz. In front of your eyes" platform to its members initiated work on implementing this systemic solution for German schools.
