After 1945, many survivors received neither recognition nor support in coping with their traumatic experiences. Exclusion, poverty, and silence often characterized entire decades of their lives. Today, elderly survivors are often dependent on assistance. Since 2000, the EVZ Foundation has therefore been supporting projects, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and Israel, that enable survivors to participate in society, secure their basic needs, and ensure dignified care in old age. These include home visits and volunteer services, social meeting places, counseling services, and therapeutic work. At the same time, the EVZ foundation is committed to ensuring that politics and society fulfill their responsibility toward survivors.
As part of the campaign “I'm still alive – Survivors of Nazi crimes,” the EVZ foundation organized discussions with contemporary witnesses in the commemorative years 2014 and 2015, bringing their biographies and faces into the public and digital sphere.
Since 2024, the funded photo project “Ma Bistrass! – Lest we forget” by artist Luigi Toscano has been honoring survivors of the Sinti and Roma communities in large-format, impressive portrait photographs, making their personal stories visible and sharing their experiences.
The Treffpunkt Dialog-support program continues the EVZ foundation's core mission – at the kitchen table, on walks, or in discussion groups. Local networks have been established in Germany and Ukraine, in which young volunteers support survivors in their everyday lives, organize home visits, help with errands, and offer intergenerational meeting formats. The aim is to reduce social isolation, promote social participation, and anchor the culture of remembrance in direct exchange. In 2016 and 2017 the multilingual traveling exhibition “... like breathing fresh air” made the impact of this exchange tangible: Journalist Lesya Kharchenko conducted interviews with survivors in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. The life stories she heard testify to unimaginable suffering, but also to strength and courage to face life.
