© Alina Simmelbauer
They're still here! - Children from forbidden relationships between Germans and prisoners of war or forced laborers
© Andreas Ehresmann
© Andreas Ehresmann
The project addresses the relationships between Germans and so-called "foreign workers", which were forbidden under National Socialist law, and in particular the biographies of their descendants. Even after 1945, their parents' history of persecution and their children's experiences of discrimination and exclusion were often taboo and have been lacking in the culture of remembrance until now, and have hardly been investigated academically.
Participatory conception of a traveling exhibition is the main objective of the project. The personal access to the sometimes existing experiences of racism and identity crises of the children and young people at that time opens up a space to talk about racism, also for young people with comparable experiences. A forum gives this group the opportunity to exchange ideas and network with each other. In workshops, the participants compile the biographical focal points as presented in the exhibition via interviews. For the first time ever, personal experiences of this group are preserved and safeguarded by these interviews. The exhibition is supported by a scientific advisory board, an advisory board of young "experts on their own account" with migration history, who can establish the transfer between the experiences of exclusion and racism between then and now, and the Bad Bederkesa Education Center for Teacher Training.
Sandbostel Camp Foundation
The memorial site at the location of the former Prisoner of War Main Camp (Stalag) X B Sandbostel in northern Lower Saxony is a facility of the private Sandbostel Camp Foundation. The central and most important large exhibit consists of seven parallel rows of former wooden dormitory huts. Furthermore, there are twelve other buildings from the Stalag period and the early post-war period, including internment camps for members of the Waffen-SS and emergency transit camps for young male refugees from East Germany. The history of the prisoner-of-war camp is presented with the help of two permanent exhibitions and a multi-layered memorial education program.
Cooperation partners:
KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme
Projekt „Multi-peRSPEKTif“ am Denkort Bunker Valentin, Bremen
Kompetenzzentrum für Lehrer(innen)fortbildung Bad Bederkesa
Funding country: Germany
Duration: 01.12.2022 until 31.12.2024