Poster: Exhibition: Names instead of Numbers Poster (PDF)
The international travelling exhibition Names instead of Numbers – Remembrance Book for the prisoners of Dachau concentration camp was hosted by the Waterloo Centre for German Studies and shown at the Modern Languages Building, University of Waterloo from September 30th to October 18th 2012.
The exhibition contains twenty-two biographies from the Dachau Remembrance Book. "The basic idea of the Book of Remembrance for Former Prisoners of the Dachau Concentration Camp is to make the names behind the numbers visible; to set a prisoner apart from the anonymous other ones and give him back his individuality", said Klaus Schultz, deacon in the Protestant Church of Reconciliation, situated on the grounds of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, and a member of the Project Partners of the Book of Remembrance. One can first begin to understand the history of National Socialism in Germany only by focusing on the experiences of individuals during this time period. The book and the exhibition are meant to remember the people hidden behind the prisoner uniforms and victim statistics. The biographies are written entirely by the individual project volunteers and include pictures and original documents. They performed historical and archival research, contacted Dachau survivors or their relatives, and conducted interviews. The selection of biographies for this exhibition offered viewers a glimpse into the lives of people with different nationalities and different political, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
The exhibition has been financed by the Bavarian State Office for Political Education, Bavarian State Chancellery, Bavarian Teachers’ Association, Archdioceses of Cologne and of Munich and Freising, the City of Dachau, and others. Names instead of Numbers and the Dachau Remembrance Book were created by the Dachauer Forum – Katholische Erwachsenenbildung e. V.
For further information, please visit the Gedaechtnisbuch website.
The text is based on notes from the exhibition brochure.
The exhibition appealed to a broad audience:
For further information about the exhibition, please read the article in our newsletter Wat's In-Sight issue 8 (PDF).