A central component of the Institute’s outreach work is The Future of Remembrance – Museum Simon Wiesenthal, located on the ground floor of the VWI. The museum focuses on Wiesenthal’s methods and motives, as well as incorporating current research findings.

After being liberated from the Mauthausen concentration camp, Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal dedicated his life to tracking down Nazi perpetrators. A short film documenting the establishment of his first office in Vienna vividly illustrates the modest conditions under which he collected documents and information—materials that today form the basis of the Simon Wiesenthal Archive.

A selection of documents from the Archive is presented on a virtual desk. They recount the stories of high-profile cases involving individuals such as Adolf Eichmann and Hermine Braunsteiner. A contact book from Wiesenthal’s estate illustrates his extensive network, which comprised survivors, informants, supporters, politicians and fellow campaigners in the pursuit of justice.

Despite his international recognition, Wiesenthal faced significant hostility in Austria for many years. From the 1970s onwards, and especially after the Kreisky–Wiesenthal affair in 1975, he became an increasingly public figure and one of the leading voices in the Austrian media. The exhibition also offers a glimpse into these public appearances.

His meticulous, investigative and activist work has now been translated into rigorous scholarly research at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute (VWI). It rests on three pillars: research, documentation and outreach/public history.