Cottbus: A Station of Remembrance – Experience NS History Visibly
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A Station Becomes a Place of Remembrance
The special exhibition Cottbus: A Station of Remembrance. Deportations and Forced Labor in National Socialism makes visible how closely connected the Cottbus train station was during the Nazi period with expulsion, deportation, prisoner transports, and forced labor. At the Cottbus Human Rights Center, visitors encounter a historically grounded presentation that links regional urban history with European remembrance culture and political education.
Four Narrative Threads of a Suppressed History
The exhibition follows four interconnected themes: the exclusion and disenfranchisement of the Jewish population, the deportation trains through Cottbus, the women's prison as a site of political detention, and the daily lives of forced laborers in the city's businesses and institutions.
In 1938, Jewish individuals with Polish citizenship were expelled from Cottbus and the region through the train station to Poland. During World War II, deportation trains passed through Cottbus to ghettos in occupied Poland and to Theresienstadt. Transportations from cities in western and southern Germany, as well as from occupied Western European countries, also went through the city.
The Reichsbahn as an Instrument of Persecution
A special focus is on the role of the German Reichsbahn. The exhibition illustrates how transport infrastructure and state violence intersected and how the station functioned as a logistical component of deportation, detention, and forced labor. At the same time, the local dimension becomes visible: Thousands of people were abducted to Cottbus and had to work under coercion in industrial enterprises, at the Reichsbahn, in municipal facilities, and on farms.
Names, Routes, and Destinies
A digital media installation based on historical departure boards brings deportation routes, destination stations, names, and former addresses of the affected individuals to life. Writing, light, and movement create a concentrated exhibition atmosphere. The focus here is not on classical painting or sculpture, but on documentary installation, historical testimony, and the ethical power of precise remembrance.
Historical Education for the Present and Future
The project was created as part of the MemoRails program – Stop! Here we remember NS history and is sponsored by the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future, as well as the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media. The Cottbus Human Rights Center collaborates with exhibeo, the AG Stolpersteine Cottbus, the Municipal Collections Cottbus, and the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. Peer-to-peer guided tours and an intergenerational communication approach connect historical research with cultural education, human rights, and the question of social cohesion.
Conclusion: Remembrance Needs a Place
The exhibition transforms the train station and the memorial into spaces of active remembrance. Visitors can expect a factually precise, emotionally concentrated artistic experience between documentary research, digital installation, and historical spatial effect. Anyone wishing to understand Cottbus from a new perspective and engage with the consequences of disenfranchisement, deportation, and forced labor should visit this exhibition live.
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- Website: https://www.menschenrechtszentrum-cottbus.de/
