Review of "EVZ Conversations!" 

Amid the resurgence of right-wing extremist ideologies and the associated threat to democracy and the economic landscape of Germany, many companies are seeking new ways and opportunities to address their own past. However, even 80 years after the end of the Second World War, the examination of a company's history in the context of National Socialism is making slow progress in only a few companies.

At the outset, Annette Schavan emphasized the important role of companies as contributors and shapers of society in this debate:

"Today, as well, shaping the present and living a culture of remembrance requires us to delve deeper into history and decipher it. Not only to understand, but to know what it means for today. Especially now, when it becomes so clear to many of us: 'Never again' is easily said but an illusion," stated Annette Schavan in her opening address.

Annette Schavan’s opening was followed by a keynote from Dr Daniel Logemann, head of the Museum of Forced Labor under National Socialism in Weimar, Germany.

The panel, moderated by Dr. Andrea Despot, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the EVZ Foundation, included the experts Markus Langer, Managing Director of the Evonik Foundation, Franzi von Kempis, Communication Consultant & Journalist, Prof. Dr. Manfred Grieger, Historian, and Christoph Kübel, Foundation Initiative of German Business, Member of the Board of Trustees of the EVZ Foundation.

In addition to the discussion on the current nature of corporate responsibility and the reasons why most German companies do not engage with their own past, there were insights for activities: Annemarie Hühne-Ramm, Managing Director of the Finkelstein Foundation, presented the establishment of the Finkelstein Foundation as an option for sustainable engagement. Johanna Sokoließ, Specialist Advisor of the EVZ Foundation, also introduced the blended learning format "Informed, Courageous, Engaged" for companies.

About the EVZ

The mission of the EVZ Foundation is to keep alive the memory of the injustice of National Socialist persecution, to accept the resulting responsibility in the present day, and to actively shape the future. The central motivation behind the foundation's establishment in 2000 was the disbursement of humanitarian compensation to former forced laborers of the Nazi regime – a milestone in Germany's reckoning with the past. Today, the foundation supports projects and activities through its fields of action, Education and Action, that serve the survivors of National Socialist persecution, international understanding, and the strengthening of human rights.