Since its inception on January 1, 2003 the Bavarian Memorial Foundation is responsible for the former concentration camps Dachau and Flossenbürg. The Memorial Foundation Act clearly is stating the main task of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation:"The purpose of the Foundation is to preserve the monuments as witnesses to the crimes of the National Socialists, as places of remembrance of the suffering of the victims and as places of learning for future generations, to support historical research on this and to contribute that the knowledge of the historical events is kept alive in people's consciousness and carried on" (GedStG, Art. 2) The Foundation's mission includes not only the original memorial work but the support of the historical-political education, editing its own publications and the cooperation with institutions working with the same objective in Germany and abroad.