Educating Through Work at the Human Rights Center Cottbus: Making GDR Injustice Visible
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When a state label determined a life
The traveling exhibition Educating Through Work. ‘Asocial’ as Enemies of the State in the GDR brings to light a long-suppressed chapter of GDR history at the Human Rights Center Cottbus. In the historical context of the Cottbus Prison Memorial, visitors encounter fourteen individual life stories that speak of social exclusion, state discipline, and politically motivated criminalization.
Fourteen biographies against forgetting
The focus is on people who were stigmatized as ‘asocial’ under Section 249 of the GDR Criminal Code. The exhibition showcases different life paths: Affected were, among others, people without regulated employment, individuals with non-conforming lifestyles, prostitutes, punks, applicants for exit permits, and individuals with politically undesirable views.
Photographs, historical documents, film footage, and interviews with witnesses and experts give the affected individuals back their stories. The curatorial presentation combines historical research with political education and directs attention to the long-term consequences of state labels.
The Asocial Paragraph 249 as an Instrument of Repression
The so-called Asocial Paragraph was broadly and vaguely formulated. The SED dictatorship used it to legally pursue perceived unwillingness to work, non-conforming lifestyles, or unwanted political views. Those who did not conform to the ideal image of the socialist person could be declared enemies of the state.
The exhibition traces the paths into homes, youth work farms, and prisons and highlights how detention, surveillance, and social stigmatization interfered in personal biographies. Historical lines lead from earlier notions of social normalization through the Nazi period to the GDR and comparable developments in the ČSSR and the Soviet Union.
Exhibition atmosphere in the former prison
In the Human Rights Center Cottbus, the presentation gains a special spatial impact. The historical architecture of the memorial site, the concentrated design, and the documentary materials create an intense exhibition atmosphere. Between photographs, records, and film sequences, history becomes tangible not abstract but as concrete human experience.
The artistic consideration does not follow an aesthetic end in itself. The art experience arises from the connection of image, document, and space: An aesthetic experience that leads to reflection on language, power, belonging, and human dignity.
Cultural education and historical responsibility
The traveling exhibition realized by exhibeo e. V. was created in cooperation with the Union of Victim Associations of Communist Tyranny e. V. and is supported by institutions for research and political education. It makes an important contribution to the culture of remembrance and cultural education by connecting individual fates with the structural history of the GDR.
The particularly compelling question is how social labels arise and what consequences they unfold. The exhibition thus not only opens access to GDR history but also a space for contemporary discussions about exclusion, normalization, and political responsibility.
Conclusion: A necessary artistic experience of remembrance
The exhibition welcomes visitors with a factually grounded, emotionally compelling, and historically significant presentation. Fourteen biographies, photographs, documents, and film testimonies make visible how state repression pushed people out of society. Visiting the Human Rights Center Cottbus connects historical knowledge with aesthetic experience and cultural enrichment. This exhibition deserves attention, time, and personal consideration on-site.
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- Website: https://erziehung-durch-arbeit.de/
