The museum documents forced labor under National Socialism and presents it as the most radical form of racist social order imaginable, demonstrating its destructive consequences and leading into the depths of Nazi society.
This raises questions, not only about how to address the history of forced labor under the Nazi regime but also: What do we learn from this in terms of living together today?
In order to explore these questions, the Boris Romanchenko Hall offers an open space for discussion forums, conferences, interventions, and exhibitions. Here we would like to discuss with you and create networks that are committed using an awareness of history to shape a positive way of living together in the future.
This event space is dedicated to Boris Romanchenko. The former forced labourer and inmate of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps was active for many years in the International Buchenwald-Dora Committee as Vice-President for the Ukraine. On April 12, 2015, he pronounced the Oath of Buchenwald on the camp’s former roll call square in Russian: "Наш идеал – построить новый мир мира и свободы." (To build a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal!)
He died on March 18, 2022, in Kharkiv. During a Russian rocket attack a bomb hit the high-rise building where he lived on the eighth floor and his apartment caught fire. Due to his limited mobility, he had been previously unable to evacuate since the electricity for the elevator had gone out.
