Forced Labor in Full Public View - Museum Forced Labor Under National Socialism

Personal Testimonies Photographs, Dedications, Memories

Forced laborers who struggled to preserve a bit of normalcy and who momentarily managed to break with the role of the disenfranchised become visible. Commentary places the apparently harmless photographs in context.

Rules and Prohibitions Racism by the Book

Regulation and alienation characterized forced laborers’ time in Germany. The decrees issued by the security authorities gave the Germans the ability to implement a racial ideology in concrete actions.

Messages in Pictures Everyday Photography and Self-expression

Forced laborers used birthdays or Christmas celebrations as occasions for taking everyday photographs. To avoid the impression of “normalcy”, the photographs entail clear messages.

Art creates encounters with the past

The art project brings historical documents into the public sphere in an unusual and both digital and analogue way. It provides spontaneous, direct confrontations with the past—and with the topic of forced labor under National Socialism—in the midst of everyday life. The project aims to surprise people and raise questions, inspiring curiosity and an interest in history.

Private photographs made by forced laborers during their time in Nazi Germany form the core of these interventions. Young people present themselves with confidence and vitality. The way that they recount their memories and their dedications on the back of the photographs or sometimes their messages in the photographs themselves ground the seemingly harmless images in their specific context and reveal the conditions of forced labor in Germany.

The relationship between Germany and the forced laborers was shaped by the racism of National Socialism. This is reflected in the comprehensive rules and regulations that the Nazi authorities implemented in all spheres of life. The interventions transfer some of these regulations as “disruptors” into public space, especially in contexts where they would have applied in everyday life during the Nazi period: on public transportation, in the city realm, in cultural institutions, at work, and in leisure contexts.

Impression of the interventions_2024

The interventions transfer some of these regulations as “disruptors” into public space, especially in contexts where they would have applied in everyday life during the Nazi period.

BECOME A SUPPORTER!

We already have many supporters who are providing space for us to present the fates of forced laborers and who are helping to make visible the everyday, systematic racism of the Nazi period. They provide space in their publications, websites, venues, and postcard stands, on social media or city amenities, on buses, in railways stations, and at bus stations.

Working together with many others, we are making an appeal to our common social responsibility—timelier than ever—to take a stand against marginalization and support the respect for human dignity and unalienable human rights.

Every form of support enhances the reach of the project and this joint message.

If you would like to join our efforts, please contact us!

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to our supporters: