NS Forced Labor Documentation Center

 After the meeting at House of One, and after a short visit to the Neue Synagoge (Oranienburgstrasse), where you are not allowed to take pictures, except for a temporary exhibition that I didn't find very convincing, I traveled to the NS Forced Labor Documentation Center. The center is housed in the barracks of a former forced labor camp, in the middle of a residential area. As far as I am aware, this is not one of the most well known museums in Berlin that deal with WWII, but I think it should be. Also because the story of the millions of foreigners (and Germans) who were forced to work in and for Nazi Germany should be made known more, and not only because it is linked so closely to the history of the concentration camps and (less) the extermination camps, and of other aspects of the Nazi terror. 

The permanent exhibition is well done, it tells lots of personal stories, of men and women from various countries and backgrounds, and it gives a very good overview of the topic. I saw at least two stories of forced laborers - Albert Tamboer (1918-1944) from the Netherlands, and Galina Romanowa (1918-1944), a Ukrainian doctor who became linked to the European Union resistance group - who were guillotined at Ploetzensee Prison. Only now, when I write down the years of Albert and Galina's lives, do I see that they were both only 26 years old (the same age our daughter Ariel is today) when they were murdered. From what I understand and could see, Berlin high school students visit the center, and I believe it would be a useful addition to the program of any other (German or foreign) school that visits Berlin and wants to learn more about the Nazi era. Public tours in English are available, and tours can also be booked through the website.






Milosh M. (I don't know if he is a student or an adult who visited, this is just feedback left on a whiteboard in the permanent exhibition, I like the optimism in the quote, though I don't even know which war Milosh is talking about): "All the bad things bring something good," said my father after the war.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little bit about myself

Image
My name is Yonathan Bar-On (Bert de Bruin). Born and raised in the Netherlands, I have lived in Israel since 1992. I am a historian and a columnist for the Dutch daily Friesch Dagblad, and I have been teaching English at the high school of the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, Israel for the last 15 years. In my classes, besides the English high school curriculum, I usually have time to do extracurricular projects. I have developed class projects (often using material provided by Centropa ) on topics like human rights, refugees, Holocaust, migration, and resistance in Nazi-Germany. You can get an impression of those and other projects by clicking here . I've participated in Centropa seminars in Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Sarajevo, and Prague. With two different Ukrainian schools, in 2024 and 2025 I did a project titled 'Comfort Food in Times of War', in which our students shared experiences from the wars in their country and made videos about dishes that helped them cope ...
Read more

The Man in the Clouds - A trilingual book for interreligious and intercultural dialogue and education

Image
This project will be the main focus during my stay in Berlin. It started in 2016 as an idea for a workshop in Stuttgart for Palestinian and Israeli teachers: to have Israeli, Palestinian and German students translate a Dutch children's book into Arabic, Hebrew and German, get a trilingual, fully illustrated edition of the book published, and use that book in Israeli, Palestinian and German elementary schools. The book was written by Koos Meinderts and Annette Fienieg, whose permission to use the text and illustrations I asked and received before I started working on the project. The book is  The Man in the Clouds (De man in de wolken) , and it deals with the importance of giving, sharing, accepting the other, and the dangers of greed and materialism. Its main themes are universal, which together with the beautiful illustrations makes the book a great tool for intercultural and interreligious dialogue and education. I teach English at the Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa, and fou...
Read more

One project finished - A Practical Guide to Memorials of Persecution and Resistance in and around Berlin

Image
 The first (though secondary) of the two projects that I worked on during my time in Berlin has been finished successfully. It is a practical guide for anybody who is in Berlin and wants to visit one or more of the 69 memorials and museums that appear in the guide. It includes a useful guide with a basic description, links to a website (for most sites) and the location in Google maps, plus information about opening hours etc. where relevant. The guide is called 'To Warn and Remember' and you can find it here . My cooperative project with House of One is in an advanced stage. I'm waiting for feedback and input from my Berlin colleagues, as soon as I have that (before the end of the month, I assume) I will finish, publish, and share the learning units based on 'The Man in the Clouds' .
Read more