The Police and the Holocaust

The project united law-enforcement practitioners, police trainers, historians, and representatives of Jewish communities to confront a long-standing gap in police education: the involvement of police institutions in National Socialism and the Holocaust.

The project pursued two connected goals. 

First, it offered police officers a solid, historically grounded understanding of how policing structures, practices, and professional cultures were reshaped under the Nazi dictatorship—and how these transformations enabled systematic persecution and mass murder. 

Second, it encouraged officers today to reflect on their own professional ethics, their responsibilities within a democratic state governed by the rule of law, and their role in resisting antisemitism and other forms of hatred. Villa ten Hompel in Münster—a former command center of the Ordnungspolizei and now a site of learning and remembrance—acted as a central partner and point of reference for this work. Alongside Villa ten Hompel, what matters gGmbH contributed long-standing expertise in educational work at historical Holocaust sites, as well as in Jewish perspective-based community engagement, informed by cooperation with the World Jewish Congress.

Together with international partners, the project weaved historical research, site visits, encounter programs, and hands-on training into an integrated approach to education and professional practice.