Parallel to follow-up work on an Auschwitz Memorial project with German and Polish trainees from Volkswagen AG, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee commented in Emden, Lower Saxony, on the Education Minister's proposals:

“Auschwitz survivors welcome the debate initiated by the Minister, especially in times of rapidly increasing anti-Semitism and the attempts by right-wing extremist and Nazi groups to recruit young people for their narrow-minded world of hatred and violence. In the context of school lessons, visits to memorial sites can show precisely where this world of right-wing extremism finally led.

For Holocaust survivors, it is not so much a question of compulsory visits that is important. In the current dramatic situation the key question concerns the federal government and the federal states: they need to provide financial support and enable schools and teacher training institutes to offer trips to memorial sites for pupils and, especially, teacher training projects. It is imperative that we refuse to leave the field to the right-wing extremists inside and outside parliaments in Europe, especially in the current situation.”