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To engineer the millions of murders they committed in the concentration and extermination camps, the SS needed civilian experts. Of all those involved, the J. A. Topf & Sons Company of Erfurt played a leading role. Its incineration ovens made the disposal of the corpses quick and inexpensive, and its ventilation technology optimized the killing operations in the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers. Key documents on the Holocaust from Auschwitz, Moscow and the Topf & Sons company archive are the focus of this volume edited by Annegret Schüle on behalf of the City of Erfurt, State Capital of Thuringia, to accompany the international travelling exhibition of Topf & Sons - Builders of the Auschwitz Ovens Place of Remembrance. Developed in cooperation with the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, the exhibition opened in the former laundry barrack of the main camp at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in 2017.

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Annegret Schüle, geb. 1959 in Neckarsulm. Mitarbeit in der Gedenkstätte Buchenwald. Im Auftrag der Stadt Erfurt leitet sie den Aufbau des Erinnerungsortes Topf & Söhne auf dem ehemaligen Firmengelände

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