At the core of its activities, the Museum Center for Persecuted Arts refers to the aims of the Civic Foundation for Persecuted Arts – Else Lasker-Schüler Center – Gerhard Schneider Art Collection and focuses on works of art and literature that reflect the political and social events between 1914 and 1989. The Center is also dedicated to the persecuted performing arts, including music, film, theater, and cabaret. The Center for Persecuted Arts is committed to the ICOM (International Council of Museums) Code of Ethics for Museums and fulfills the basic functions of a museum: collecting, preserving, researching, and communicating.

The Museum Center for Persecuted Arts is an educational museum. Using both analog and virtual methods, it presents the mechanisms of persecution and exclusion through biographies and artistic creations. It reveals the strategies of persecuted people and those who were forced to flee in order to survive or overcome the threat.

Beyond the traditional tasks of a museum, the Center is a socio-political institution that responds to current developments, is open to future challenges, and conveys the values of a pluralistic, liberal society.

The Museum Center for Persecuted Arts is a museum of discovery of lost and neglected works of art, stories, and fates. It gives a place to those who have not found or will not find a forum due to flight and expulsion, forced migration, terror and exile, political persecution and exclusion.

The museum is characterized by civic commitment. Supported by Solingen, the “City of Blades,” and the Rhineland Regional Council (LVR), it has local and regional roots as well as an international orientation.

It enters into worldwide cooperations and carries the reappraisal of the dictatorial past beyond the borders of Germany. The museum cooperates with related institutions, partner cities, universities, and other educational institutions. It participates in research projects and serves as a platform for the presentation of initiatives, theme-related events, and scholarly debates. It is a space for dialog between those affected and the following generations, as well as between scholars and all those interested in the subject.