Opening of the exhibition on the unknown extermination camp Kulmhof at the Centrum Judaicum

Background
Exactly 70 years ago, on December 8 1941, several hundred Jews were murdered with exhaust emissions in the small village of Kulmhof am Ner (Chełmno nad Nerem), about  70 kilometres north-west of Łódź (Litzmannstadt). The implementation of this extermination camp by the SS-task force Lange marks the beginning of national socialist mass murder of the European Jewry using lethal gas. After 1945, Kulmhof remained unknown among the national socialist extermination camps.

Exhibition: »The unknown extermination camp Kulmhof am Ner – history and remembrance«
The exhibition documents the history of the extermination camp Kulmhof, while commemorating the more than 150,000 people who were murdered there. Twelve display boards document the development of the camp, the process of extermination and personal tragedies. Furthermore, the exhibition shows which traces can still be found at the site seventy years after the crimes took place.
The names of more than 2,600 Jewish children, women, and men from Berlin who were murdered in Kulmhof are attached to the glass case with the model of the New Synagogue in the middle of the room. In addition, quotes of witnesses will be displayed.

Opening
First, there will be a greeting by Dr Hermann Simon, Director of the Centrum Judaicum, followed by a welcome statement from Ralf Wieland, President of Berlin’s House of Representatives. This will be followed by a short historical introduction by Prof. Dr Wolfgang Benz, spokesperson of the advisory board of the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The exhibition will then be opened by the initiators, Artur Hojan and Cameron Munro. The curators Dr Ingo Loose, Institute of Contemporary History (IfZ) Munich-Berlin, Uwe Neumärker, and Dr Ulrich Baumann, Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, will guide the guests through the exhibition.

Organisers
The exhibition was realised by the Foundation New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum, the Parity charity LV Berlin e. V., the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, the ASSOCIATION T4 RESEARCH TEAM, and the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe – funded partly by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media.