Dr. Andreas Kahrs, founder and CEO of what matters, guides the educational trips and leads participants to historical sites in the Lublin region - places where the mechanisms of “Aktion Reinhardt” can be understood in particularly striking ways. In the interview, he speaks about his personal motivation to bring these lesser-known sites more prominently into collective memory, about their powerful impact on visitors, and about why engaging with “Aktion Reinhardt” plays a crucial role today in fostering democratic responsibility and European remembrance culture.
What first led you, personally, to take people to the sites of “Operation Reinhard”?
AK: Almost twenty years ago, when I was studying in Poland, I visited several Holocaust sites I myself had never heard of before. Later, as I began researching some of these places, it struck me how much there is to be potential lies in taking other people to these places, too.
What keeps me doing it is the response from participants. Many say the programmes matter to them personally because they encounter a side of Holocaust history they hadn’t known existed. In that respect, they often experience something similar to what I experienced back then.
And there is another element: once I knew about these places, I felt a responsibility not to let them slip out of view, and to ensure they have a place in how we remember.
How does visiting Operation Reinhard sites differ from visiting other Holocaust memorial sites?
AK: Operation Reinhard — the German programme of mass murder targeting Jews in occupied Poland — doesn’t revolve around a single place. It can only really be understood by following its development over several days, across a number of locations.
That, in turn, makes it possible to see the range of people involved in this (hi)story. You encounter not only perpetrators in the killing centres and within the SS, but also other German agencies, German civilians, local Polish residents, and, of course, different Jewish communities and groups.
And much of this takes place not in symbolic, purpose-built memorial settings, but in ordinary places where events unfolded. Real places of historical significance we can identify and reconstruct through maps, photographs, testimonies and documents.
What do participants tend to take away from being there? Is there an experience or moment on these journeys that has stayed with you, that you’ve found particularly touching or surprising?
AK: Being in these spaces often unsettles people’s assumptions about what “sites of Nazi crimes” look like. Alongside everyday places where traces still remain, participants are often deeply affected by the memorial sites themselves. Many are designed as cemeteries today: highly artistic spaces, with very little in the way of material remains.
Sometimes, though, it is the smaller, less prominent memorials that leave the strongest impression. For me, too, there are moments when one thought returns with full force: this is where it happened. Take a forest, for example, where the remains of Jews who were shot still lie in mass graves. At such places we can often speak in concrete terms, about what occurred and about the people whose lives were taken.
Why is it especially important to talk about Operation Reinhard today — particularly in the face of distortion and antisemitism?
AK: People often ask, “What has this got to do with me?” One good way of answering is to connect the history to their own worlds. We can talk about the fate of people who lived in our very own towns, in our very own streets.
In spring 1942, more than 23,000 German Jews were deported from Germany to the Lublin district. In some of our projects, we trace one particular deportation from start to finish. That kind of focussed approach makes it harder to dismiss or distort the history, because it is specific rather than abstract.
And travel matters in its own right. It fundamentally expands our perspectives. We need to engage with different European remembrance cultures, and we need to create spaces where people can meet and speak with one another.
How do you see participants talking, during and after the journey, about democracy, responsibility and remembrance?
AK: The fact that we spend several days together makes a real difference. Reflection doesn’t happen in a single moment. The group discussions that accompany the visit are facilitated and guided. And if participants are willing to engage, quite distinctive dynamics can develop within the group.
People move through emotionally intense experiences and challenging places together. Questions about what this means for the present, about antisemitism today, and about the role of remembrance in a democratic society, tend to arise naturally.
And I often see a sense of responsibility emerge, rooted in what people have learnt and in the encounter with places they didn’t know existed. Many return home wanting to do something with these findings, rather than leaving it as an experience that ends when the journey ends.