They’re setting a good example and making #everynamecounts visible throughout society.
Photo: SC Freiburg
#everynamecounts thrives on the dedication of countless volunteers. That’s why we’re so glad when associations, companies, and prominent individuals support our initiative and help draw broad public attention to it. Our goal: to work together to erect a digital monument to the victims of Nazi persecution.
Soccer as a shining example
With its support for #everynamecounts, the soccer club SC Freiburg is lighting a beacon for respect, diversity, and democracy. In 2024, Germany’s premier-league men’s and women’s soccer teams entered the stadium wearing #everynamecounts sweatshirts and called on their fans to join the initiative.
For years, the soccer club SC Freiburg has been taking an active stand against racism, discrimination, and violence. As an #everynamecounts partner, it also commemorates victims of Nazism. In the interview, soccer player Hasret Kayıkçı, the captain of SC Freiburg’s women’s team, explains why she thinks that’s important and talks about the contribution soccer can make to a diverse society today.
Calls for action on social media
In January 2025, the month marking the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, social media activist Susi Siegert supported our #everynamecounts challenge on her Instagram and TikTok channel keine.erinnerungskultur (no.remembrance culture). The video call for action she published a few days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day went viral with 1.2 million views 50,000 likes. Some 60,000 volunteers took part in the one-week challenge and digitized more than 80,000 documents. The 27,000 prisoner registration cards we had initially set out to process were digitized within just a few days – a colossal success!
Video call for action keine.erinnerungskultur for #everynamecounts
Photo: Johanna Groß
Support in the political sphere
Like foreign minister Annalena Baerbock in January 2022, many other top politicians have used their prominence to broadcast the idea of #everynamecounts to the world.
Annalena Baerbock, Federal Foreign Minister, recorded during a conversation with Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. 19.01.2022.
An award-winning initiative
The presentation of the Smart Hero Award to #everynamecounts gave vital momentum to our crowdsourcing initiative. Every year, this distinction is awarded to best-practice examples for dedication to social and societal causes by way of social media. The award has been presented by the Digital Opportunities Foundation and Meta since 2014.
Smart Hero Award
When the Smart Hero Award was presented to #everynamecounts in 2022, it drew a lot of public attention to the initiative – and the initiators were overjoyed. The Arolsen Archives won this special distinction in the category “Innovation in Digital Social Involvement.”
Our crowdsourcing initiative already had two prominent advocates when it was launched in January 2020: former Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters and French ambassador to Germany Anne-Marie Descôte. They attended the premiere of the media installation on the façade of the French embassy in Berlin that marked the initiative’s official opening. And they were both among the first volunteers to digitize the names of Nazi persecution victims on computers in the embassy building.
A moving media installation
With an impressive media installation on the façade of the French embassy in Berlin and its livestream broadcast, #everynamecounts was already effectively drawing public attention to itself from the start. An extensive social media campaign accompanied the event. In 2022, the installation was on view again – now on the LED wall of the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament building.
