Education through Work in Cottbus: Experience GDR Injustice and Forgotten Biographies
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When a State Label Decided a Life
The traveling exhibition Education through Work. 'Asocial' as Enemies of the State in the GDR makes a long-suppressed chapter of GDR history visible at the Human Rights Center Cottbus. In the historical context of the memorial site Cottbus Prison, visitors encounter individual life paths, state repression, and the lasting consequences of social exclusion.
Fourteen Biographies Against Forgetting
At the center are fourteen selected biographies of people who were stigmatized, disciplined, or criminalized under the so-called Asocial Paragraph 249 of the GDR Penal Code. Those affected included people without regular work, individuals with unconventional lifestyles, prostitutes, punks, applicants for emigration, as well as people with politically undesirable attitudes.
Photographs, historical documents, film footage, as well as interviews with witnesses and experts give the affected individuals their story back. The concentrated curatorial presentation combines historical research with an intense work examination and directs attention to language, power, and the question of how societal norms contribute to the exclusion of individual people.
The Paragraph 249 and the Logic of Exclusion
The so-called Asocial Paragraph 249 was broadly and ambiguously formulated. The SED dictatorship used it to legally pursue alleged work shirking, an deviant lifestyle, or an undesirable political stance. Those who did not conform to the ideal image of the socialist person could be declared an enemy of the state.
The exhibition shows pathways to homes, youth work camps, and prisons, illuminates detention conditions, and traces the consequences of stigmatization into life after release. Historical lines lead to the Empire, National Socialism, early GDR, as well as to comparable notions in the ČSSR and the Soviet Union. In this way, the exhibition positions the theme art historically and culturally as a visual documentation of political persecution.
Documents, Images, and Cinematic Testimonies
The atmosphere of the exhibition arises from the interplay of photographs, documents, film material, and biographical narratives. Materials and spatial impact do not lead to an aesthetic distance but to an immediate aesthetic experience: the examination of the works becomes an encounter with life stories, whose traces make state control and social attributions visible.
The presentation was realized by exhibeo e.V. in cooperation with the Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny. It is supported by institutions of political education and the reappraisal of the communist dictatorship. The exhibition thus makes an important contribution to cultural education and the differentiated engagement with GDR injustices.
Art Experience at a Place of Remembrance
At the Human Rights Center Cottbus, the exhibition connects with the historical site of the memorial site Cottbus Prison. This connection enhances the spatial impact of the presentation and opens up a special form of work examination: history appears not abstractly but as a concrete experience of detention, control, shame, and social stigmatization.
A visit focuses on the biographies behind the terms and makes visible how political systems exclude people from society through language, administration, and justice. The art experience lies here in the concentrated encounter with documentary images, personal fates, and a carefully curated culture of remembrance.
Conclusion: Understanding History Live
The exhibition awaits its audience with fourteen compelling life stories, historical documents, and cinematic testimonies of political persecution in the GDR. Those interested in contemporary history, human rights, culture of remembrance, and cultural education will experience an enlightening and touching aesthetic experience in Cottbus. Visit the traveling exhibition live and give attention back to the forgotten biographies.
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