Arolsen Archives

#LastSeen. Pictures of Nazi Deportations

Historisches Foto einer Deportation am 20.11.1941 aus dem Lager Milbertshofen bei München nach Kaunas (Kowno) im besetzten Litauen. Es sind zwei kleine Mädchen abgebildet.

#LastSeen. Pictures of Nazi Deportations

The #LastSeen. Pictures of Nazi Deportations initiative focuses on images of deportations from the German Reich between 1938 and 1945. The photos show the last moments of persecuted people before they were wrenched out of their society and murdered. The project was funded by the “Education Agenda NS-Injustice” from November 2021 through the end of 2022.

More than 200,000 people were deported from the German Reich between 1938 and 1945. In 1938, the deportees were expelled across the Polish border; in 1940, they were deported to France. After the German invasion of Poland and the occupation of the country, the first deportations led to early camps. In the fall of 1941, the Nazis intensified their persecution. People were deported to ghettos and camps, and were sometimes murdered immediately upon arrival.

The deportations began right in the middle of German cities and towns—in market squares, restaurants, or train stations – in central locations, in full view of everyone. Neighbors, schoolchildren, and passersby watched and became part of the events, hurling insults at the persecuted, harassing them, and often buying up the belongings they had been forced to leave behind at rock-bottom prices just a few days later.

Photographs of these events have been preserved. Photos that show the events, the persecuted, the perpetrators, and those involved.

The #LastSeen project has, for the first time, systematically cataloged all images of the deportations from the German Reich and published them digitally in a photo atlas. In addition, workshops for young people and a browser-based online game were developed, in which students can independently research the history of the deportations and the photos. 

Data Sheet

Project partners:

Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Haus der Wannseekonferenz 
Institut für Stadtgeschichte und Erinnerungskultur, Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München
USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research, Los Angeles 
Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, TU Berlin

Duration: 01.11.2021 until 31.12.2022

www.lastseen.org

More about the project

Education Agenda NS-Injustice

The Magazine of the Education Agenda NS-InjusticeThe Magazine of the Education Agenda NS-Injustice

The Education Agenda NS-Injustice started in autumn 2021 with two certainties: Firstly, the survivors are passing away; there are few chances today to meet eyewitnesses who can tell us first-hand about the atrocities committed by the National Socialists. Secondly, we are increasingly entering contexts in which boundaries between fiction and fact are blurred. Under these conditions, we are dependent on new ways of learning and innovative forms of conveyance in our critical examination of National Socialist injustice and in historical-political educational work. In the magazine we present the funding program, projects and current debates.

Read now & learn more about this project