Nazi Forced Labor in Southern Lower Saxony: Tour of a Memory Exhibition
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Making Memory Visible: Tour of the Exhibition on Nazi Forced Labor
On November 12, 2026, Arndt Kohlmann, a staff member of the exhibition, will guide a tour through the permanent exhibition On the Trail of European Forced Labor. Southern Lower Saxony 1939–1945 in Göttingen. The tour connects local history with a European perspective on abduction, exploitation, and the life paths of people who were forced to work during World War II.
Life Stories at the Center
The exhibition documents how recruited, service-required, and forcibly deported individuals had to live and work in Southern Lower Saxony. Up to 60,000 people from at least 16 European countries were employed in the region as forced laborers. Their stories lead from their places of origin through the paths of deportation to the working and living conditions in cities and rural areas.
Objects, Documents, and Audiovisual Testimonies
In 13 thematic stations, the exhibition elucidates the extent and diversity of Nazi forced labor. Museum boxes with objects, photographs, and documents provide an illustrative access to individual biographies. Interviews with contemporary witnesses, accessible only on-site in the exhibition, deepen the historical exploration of the works and give the affected individuals their own voice.
European Perspective and Historical Responsibility
The curation was developed within an international project group with partners from Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, and Italy. This opens up different European perspectives on Nazi forced labor. The tour makes visible how Nazi racial ideology, legal status, origin, and gender determined the living and survival chances of the affected individuals.
An Artistic Experience of Memory Culture
Although not an art exhibition in the strict sense, the presentation works with a precise exhibition dramaturgy, spatial staging, and the sensory impact of historical materials. Photographs, documents, personal items, and audiovisual testimonies connect expertise with cultural education. The exhibition atmosphere invites concentrated aesthetic experience, in which history does not remain abstract but appears to be tied to concrete people and places.
The tour with Arndt Kohlmann offers a professionally guided access to a central chapter of regional memory culture. Visitors can expect an intense examination of historical sources that imparts knowledge and encourages personal engagement with responsibility, human dignity, and contemporary relevance.
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- Website: https://zwangsarbeit-in-niedersachsen.eu/de/index-de.html
