Overcome boundaries with Volkswagen
The Volkswagen international young people’s exchange overcomes many boundaries: The “Europe Exchange“ in France, the UK or Sweden makes training borders easier to cross. The “Company Exchange“ with the Volkswagen subsidiaries Seat, VW AutoEuropa and Skoda is bringing the Volkswagen family closer together and overcoming traditional borders. Forgetting historical borders, young Germans and Poles are building for a better future in “Memorial Work“ in Auschwitz.

The exchange scheme turns out to be a formative experience each year for 150 trainees and their supervisors. They see how their work, their expert knowledge and their power of judgement cross borders: by building a vehicle for disabled children in Sweden, a playground in Portugal or re-naturalisation of a nature reserve in Mlada Boleslav, Czech Republic.

Four times per year, Volkswagen trainees and young Poles meet in Auschwitz to clear roads, repair fences and read in the archive at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. They work, live and talk together.

Each exchange overcomes the boundaries of the young people’s own training world. Trainees learn and work together with Polish, French, Spanish and British people and realise they are all responsible for a joint future in Europe.