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“I hope, the Exilmuseum can be a bridge between the past and the present, between ‘we’ and ‘them’, between all the different communitys of exile. I guess, all we need, is a common house to bring us together with our memories, with our sufferings, with our feelings.”

“The Exilmuseum project comes at the right time. Now, as stories of refugees and exiles appear in the news on an almost daily basis, our gaze is drawn anew to the experiences of those who were forced into exile or expelled by the Nazis. This dramatic subject has not received enough attention. A museum of exile can serve as a space for shared remembrance.”

“Nobody has ever asked me about, or apologized for, that deeper meaning of exile—which is, in fact, a bit like losing your life’s center, its binding thread. Now, finally, a place will exist where this question is asked, where these apologies will be made. How wonderful if I live to see it!”

“With great respect for your civic commitment, I acknowledge your efforts to create a memorial in Berlin for the people who were driven out of Germany by the Nazi terror regime and to pass on their fate to future generations. Over 500,000 German citizens who had to leave Nazi Germany are a constant reminder of where exclusion and deprivation of rights can lead.”

“It's interesting that there hasn't even been the idea until this initiative came together. [...] But it should also be a government duty to take on this topic, that deals with our history, with our roots, and at the same time with world history.”

“When confronting Berlin's history today, one senses again and again that this city is missing a certain intellectual substance. With the extinction and expulsion of Jewish culture, Berlin robbed itself of one of its essential and characterizing foundations. An exile museum which reminds us of this is long overdue.”

“Forced emigration and exile still shape our world today. For this reason, it is so important to safeguard an awareness of emigration during the Nazi era and to establish places of remembrance. The bitter reality of what has been suffered, the broken biographies…they should not be dealt with only in the ivory tower of academia but experienced and understood by people today through the individual stories of those from the past. This is what I expect from the Exilmuseum.”

“Nothing is more impressive than stories about people. Not just to read numbers, figures, and statistics in history books, but to hear the testimony of living people from the period with body and soul who tell of their experience and their own emotional state.”

“Offering asylum, help, being a host – these things will play an even bigger role in the future. [...] Many Berliners have experienced hospitality in dire situations. And I think it’s time to give something back.”

“I think at the time we didn’t imagine that refugees and the subject of emigration and migration and integration would become very important in this world that has become so small. And that a place where one can find out what people went through hopefully conveys the message: we have to do it differently.”

“A museum of exile is a challenge especially suited to our time, with its networked spaces but also with its many precarious and vulnerable existences! What will be exhibited here is not what has always and unquestionably been a part of it, but rather what reminds us of broken cultural traditions and communities and makes visible the intertwining of our history with the history of others.”

“Forced migration and exile are issues of great relevance both to the history that we at the Leo Baeck Institute seek to preserve and to contemporary challenges nations are facing on a global scale. Therefore, it is timely and appropriate that the Exilmuseum will be established in present-day Germany. A museum dedicated to commemorating and examining the individual stories and the societal impact of the exile experience will serve as an important lesson around the world.”

“I am impressed by the way the Exilmuseum Foundation seeks to engage with its audience. Every contribution that helps us to remember and to reflect on emigration and exile is welcome—also to do this in cooperation with institutions and initiatives that already exist, as the Exilmuseum plans to do. Expertise and good ideas are needed to convey to the postwar generations, who have, thank goodness, grown up in a peaceful and safe environment, that having a home is by no means guaranteed.”

“The founding of a museum of emigration seems more important today than ever. This particularly applies to Germany, which must be reminded again and again of the emigration which took place during the years of tyranny. The impulse and momentum achieved during the intellectual reconstruction of the Federal Republic which came forth out of emigration has hardly been discussed. A newly conceptualized history of the Federal Republic could be established at this level which evaluates the fundamental contributions of emigrants anew.”

“The horror and shock of the Holocaust was so overwhelming and so crushing that it neglected the fates of the emigrants, the drama of survival (…) What a gift it is that there will now be a place where these stories can be told which should have been told a long time ago – of the suffering by countless broken lives. (...) Berlin needs an exile museum.”

“This subject, so very pivotal for German history and the 20th century, has never been addressed as a comprehensive history. It would be irresponsible to not tell the story.”