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Current exhibition

from 3.3.2023 to 26.4.2023 in the Lobby adjacent to Robert‑Havemann‑Hall
Weekdays from 10:00 am to 05:00 pm, please contact the administration shortly before

Born in Auschwitz

An exhibition by Alwin Meyer

Current exhibition
© Alwin Meyer

Children in Auschwitz, that is the darkest stain in a deeply dark history.

Between 1940 and 1945, more than 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Even in the early stages of the camp, the living conditions for the prisoners were such that none and none of them were to leave the death camp alive again. "The supreme purpose and primary objective of the Auschwitz concentration camp from its establishment in the spring of 1940 until the last day of its existence in January 1945 was extermination. All other tasks and goals, such as the exploitation of prisoners' labor, the robbery of victims' belongings, the use of corpses or the performance of medical experiments, were of secondary importance in comparison," Franciszek Piper, a historian and longtime employee of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, summarizes.

Among the prisoners were also 232,000 infants, children and adolescents up to 17 years of age who were deported to the Auschwitz death camp with their families or alone or were born there under unimaginable conditions. 216,300 of them were Jews, 11,000 were Sinti and Roma, 3,120 were non-Jewish Poles, 1,140 were Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians, and children and adolescents of other nations.

When the concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945, only 750 of them were still alive. 521 of them were 14 years old and younger, including 60 newborns. Despite intensive medical care, many of the children and young people did not survive their liberation for long, dying as a result of Auschwitz.

Under the title "Born in Auschwitz", 31 panels with impressive documents, photos and texts tell of the lives and deaths of the children and their mothers. The surviving children bear the traces of what they suffered on their bodies and in their souls for a lifetime. The prisoner's number tattooed on the forearm or, in the case of the youngest, on the thigh or buttocks, grew with them. And just like this, Auschwitz is always there, day and night: the memory of the separation from parents and siblings, of the omnipresent death, of the experiments carried out on them, of the constant hunger and the longing for family, a warm feather bed and for security.

The children of Auschwitz had to fight their way into life with an incomparable will. They sought and found a new life, they went to school, studied, married, had children, pursued their professions and created a new home. But Auschwitz never really let go of them.

And as they grew older, the memories of what they had experienced came and come back with even greater force. The mother who was murdered, the father, the sister.... Everything lives a lifetime and beyond in and with them and the generations to come. And so they experienced again and again decades later: Auschwitz could catch up with them at any time. Representing all the others, one declares: "No matter how far you run away. Auschwitz never lets go of you and your family."

The author of the exhibition is journalist and curator Alwin Meyer. For more than 45 years, he has searched the world for the few surviving children of Auschwitz. He has empathetically spoken with them and gained their trust. Many told him for the first time about camp life, about a childhood in which death was always present and never natural. The exhibition "Born in Auschwitz" will be on display from March 3 to April 26 in the foyer of the Robert Havemann Hall in the House of Democracy and Human Rights at Greifswalder Strasse 4 in Berlin. The exhibition can be visited weekdays from 10 am to 5 pm, admission is free.

Web: geboren-in-auschwitz.info

Organiser: Stiftung Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte

Events within the framework of this exhibition:

Wednesday, 19.4.2023 at 07.00 pm, Robert-Havemann-Hall

Le Dor Dor. From Generation to Generation - Meetings of Aktion Sühnezeichen Friedensdienste with Survivors of the Shoah

Lecture

event picture
After the victory of the Allied forces over Nazi Germany, many survivors of Nazi ghettos, concentration and extermination camps were able to find refuge and a new home in the newly founded state of Israel. According to the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs, 165,800 survivors of the Shoah (Hebrew for catastrophe) still live in Israel. ...


Saturday, 15.4.2023 at 07.00 pm, Robert-Havemann-Hall

The number on your forearm is blue like your eyes

Talk and reading with Auschwitz survivor Dr. Eva Umlauf and author Dr. Stefanie Oswalt

event picture
When Eva Umlauf is born in the Nováky labor camp in Slovakia on December 19, 1942, it is 20 degrees below zero. She is the first of five children to be born in the camp - a sign of hope, as she learns from former fellow sufferers after the war. On November 3, 1944, Eva and her parents arrive at Auschwitz on a train with about 500 ...


Thursday, 13.4.2023 at 07.00 pm, Robert-Havemann-Hall

Remember Your Name - The Children of Auschwitz

Lecture

event picture
Children in Auschwitz: this is the darkest stain of a dark history. They were deported to Auschwitz with their families or were born there under unimaginable conditions. Only a few survived. Throughout their lives, they bear the traces of what they suffered on their bodies and in their souls. Tattooed on the forearm or thigh, it grows ...


Last exhibition

from 13.1.2023 to 24.2.2023 in the Lobby adjacent to Robert‑Havemann‑Hall

UNsellable - Resistance against open pit mining in Lusatia

Last exhibition   More information ▶  
from 13.1.2023 to 24.2.2023 in the Lobby adjacent to Robert‑Havemann‑Hall

UNsellable - Resistance against open pit mining in Lusatia

Last exhibition
© GRÜNE LIGA – Umweltgruppe Cottbus

The traveling exhibition "UNverkäuflich" of the environmental group Cottbus guest from 13 January 2023 in the House of Demoktaie and Human Rights. The exhibition by Markus Pichlmaier impressively depicts how the Nochten open pit mine is moving meter by meter closer to the villages and the forest leased by the GREEN LIGA - despite the decision to phase out coal. The coal company LEAG had threatened this for the first time in writing in spring 2021. However, the environmental network is not intimidated by this and continues its educational and cultural events, forest conversion and nature conservation measures in the threatened forest. Owner*innen, who do not want to sell their forest to the LEAG, had leased it in December 2019 to the GRÜNE LIGA.

If it goes according to LEAG, the coal excavators will advance right up to the villages of Mulkwitz and Rohne and destroy the forest by 2026 at the latest. In the process, LEAG's opencast mines will demonstrably have to be reduced in size, as the German Institute for Economic Research stated in a recently published report. How far the Nochten open pit mine is actually still being run is a topic for discussion in the revision of the lignite plan.

To the Vernissage on 20 January at 19 o'clock there will be words of welcome from the federal chairman of the GREEN LIGA René Schuster and the photographer Markus Pichlmaier, who created the exhibition.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Organiser: GRÜNE LIGA – Umweltgruppe Cottbus, Stiftung Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte

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