#StolenMemory on Tour
A traveling exhibition in four converted shipping containers brings the campaign to audiences across Europe.
Just open the doors and let the stories speak for themselves: four #StolenMemory containers all tour Europe at the same time. Their most recent destinations were in Germany, Poland, and France. The #StolenMemory container has already visited a host of towns and cities across Europe, attracting attention wherever it went – from pedestrian zones to market squares.
Exhibition in a portable container
The traveling exhibition is housed in a converted shipping container with side walls that fold out. #StolenMemory uses photos of personal items that were confiscated from their owners to tell the stories of five former concentration camp prisoners whose relatives we are still looking for. Five more posters tell the stories behind items that have already been successfully returned to families.
#StolenMemory on tour in Europe
The relatives tell their stories in videos that can be accessed via QR codes. They describe the persecution their family members suffered and talk about what the objects mean to them now they have been returned. Other posters provide information about the concentration camp system and the #StolenMemory campaign.
Suitable for young people
The exhibitions use a biographical angle and focus on the fates of individual victims to encourage visitors to respond at an emotional level. This approach is particularly suitable for addressing young people. The video shows visitors describing their impressions after visiting a #StolenMemory traveling exhibition:
Cooperative projects with local institutions, such as schools and associations, give young people the opportunity to work with biographies and documents and search for clues themselves. Free educational materials to help with preparation are available for download on the #StolenMemory website.
The website also offers fascinating insights into the campaign – short animated films with supplementary web stories and video interviews with relatives sharpen the focus on the fates of specific individuals. The animated films featured on the #StolenMemory website have already been shown at various international film festivals, and in June 2021, they won the Grimme Online Award in the category “Knowledge and Education.”
Funding provided by Germany’s Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media under a program to promote culture in rural areas made it possible to design and build the first #StolenMemory exhibition container. The construction and the touring expenses for the other three containers were covered by funding from the US, Belgian, and French Foreign Ministries, the German Foreign Office, and the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
Architect Stefan Blaas designed the container, which was engineered and built by the Berlin-based company Containermanufaktur.
We will come to you
Towns and villages do not have to pay to host a #StolenMemory exhibition – the Arolsen Archives provide the containers free of charge and organize their transport to and from each destination. We also support you by providing flyers, brochures, and posters, and we can assist you with PR too.
All we need for the exhibition is a good location with a lot of foot traffic. Because the idea behind the traveling exhibition is that people should “stumble” across it in a public space – seeing the personal objects and learning about the fates of their owners prompts people to think about Nazi persecution and its after-effects right up to the present day.