Cottbus: A Station of Remembrance at the Human Rights Center
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A Station Becomes a Place of Remembrance
The special exhibition "Cottbus: A Station of Remembrance. Deportations and Forced Labor during National Socialism" makes visible how closely the Cottbus station was linked to exclusion, deportation, political imprisonment, and forced labor during the Nazi era. At the Cottbus Human Rights Center, local city history connects with European persecution history, historical research, and cultural education.
Historical Traces Between Tracks and Memorial Site
The Cottbus station was far more than an ordinary transportation hub during National Socialism. In 1938, Jewish people with Polish citizenship were expelled from Cottbus and the region to Poland. During World War II, deportation trains passed through Cottbus to ghettos in occupied Poland and to Theresienstadt. Transport from western and southern German cities, as well as from occupied Western European countries, also traversed the Cottbus tracks.
The exhibition expands this perspective to include the transports of prisoners to and from the women's penitentiary Cottbus. At the same time, it documents how thousands of people were forced to work in industrial companies, at the Reichsbahn, in municipal facilities, and on farms. The curation connects transportation history, persecution history, and the history of economic exploitation.
Four Narrative Threads of an Impactful Presentation
The exhibition follows four interrelated themes: the exclusion and disenfranchisement of the Jewish population, the deportation trains through Cottbus, the women’s penitentiary as a place of political imprisonment, and the everyday life of forced labor in businesses and institutions in the city. Documents, historical information, and biographical references focus the view on concrete life paths.
Names, Routes, and Individual Fates
A media installation inspired by historical departure boards lists places of deportation and fates. Text, light, movement, and the proximity to the memorial site create a concentrated exhibition atmosphere. The installation transforms abstract numbers into concrete life stories and makes the historical site tangible as a testament to an era.
Culture of Remembrance and Political Education
The project was created as part of the program "MemoRails – Stop! Here we remember Nazi history" of the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future and is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media. The project carrier is the Cottbus Human Rights Center e.V. in cooperation with exhibeo e.V., the AG Stolpersteine Cottbus, and the Municipal Collections Cottbus.
The exhibition does not view remembrance as a completed retrospective. It raises questions about the significance of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in the present and connects historical educational work with aesthetic experience, responsible curation, and cultural education.
Conclusion: Experience History in a Historical Place
Visitors can expect a factually precise, emotionally concentrated approach to deportations, prisoner transports, and forced labor in Cottbus. Here, the artistic experience is not created through classical painting or sculpture, but through a combination of documentation, media installation, spatial effects, and silent reflection. Those who want to connect city history, culture of remembrance, and political education should definitely visit this exhibition live.
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