The Topf & Sons family business in Erfurt had already made a name for itself before the First World War.

Under the management of the brothers Ernst Wolfgang and Ludwig Topf, the business relationship with the SS began in 1939. The exhibition uses the company's own documents to bear witness to this collaboration. It shows a completely normal company that received and processed orders. Company employees became accomplices and accomplices.

The "Special Furnace Construction" department, which had a view of the Buchenwald concentration camp from the company headquarters in Erfurt, initially provided mobile furnaces and later stationary furnaces for the camps. The inspired engineers, who were constantly striving to develop even more efficient furnaces, eventually equipped the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp with their systems.

The employees were also deployed in the development of the ventilation systems for the gas chambers. The Topf & Sons company thus made it possible for the large crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau to function like death factories and for mass murder and the disposal of corpses to be organized on an industrial scale.

The Topf & Sons Place of Remembrance on the former company site in Erfurt has reappraised this special history and was awarded the Museum Prize of the Sparkassen Kulturstiftung in 2014. The international traveling exhibition works with key documents from the company archives, which are on display in Erfurt. Films, photos, letters and reports illustrate the company's history and expand the discourse on the Holocaust. The focus is on the private sector and its participation in the crimes, which was not carried out under duress or by order.

The City Museum offered two teacher training courses as part of the exhibition. Numerous workshops and guided tours were attended by school classes during the exhibition period. In addition, a comprehensive supporting program was created and implemented by the Stadtmuseum together with many cooperation partners from the city of Wiesbaden.