Traveling Exhibition Education through Work in Cottbus: Experience Culture of Remembrance
Date and Time
Location
Price
About this Event
Mood
Venue Type
An exhibition about exclusion, compulsion, and remembrance in Cottbus
The traveling exhibition Education through Work. Asocials as Enemies of the State in the GDR leads into a disturbing, long-suppressed chapter of East German history. At the Cottbus penitentiary memorial, visitors encounter a carefully curated historical exhibition that makes the mechanisms of stigmatization and persecution visible with photos, documents, eyewitness interviews, and historical film material.
Historical depth instead of superficial remembrance
The focus is on the so-called asocial paragraph 249 and its impact history. The exhibition shows how people who did not fit the ideal image of the socialist state were marked as a danger, disciplined, and criminalized. The connection of archival material, biographical portraits, and expert voices creates a compelling examination of the work in the medium of the historical exhibition: sober, precise, and yet of great emotional power.
A place that makes history immediately tangible
The Cottbus Human Rights Center places the presentation in an authentic historical space. The Cottbus penitentiary memorial transforms the exhibition into an artistic experience of a different kind: not aesthetically in a classical sense, but intense in its spatial impact, its didactic clarity, and its moral urgency. The presentation in the main building, 2nd floor, with elevator access at the back, combines historical education with barrier-free accessibility.
Education, processing, and eyewitness accounts
The exhibition has a particularly strong impact where it makes individual life paths visible. The fourteen portraits open the view to detention conditions, propaganda, social ostracism, and the consequences of convictions up to the present day. For school classes, groups, and those historically interested, this creates a lively access to political education, culture of remembrance, and human rights issues. The opening will be accompanied by representatives from politics, historical processing, and research, underscoring the public significance of the project.
Conclusion: An exhibition that stays
Education through Work is an exhibition for everyone who wants not only to read history but to understand it. It connects source work, culture of remembrance, and critical reflection into a dense, educational, and moving visitor experience. Those interested in GDR history, political persecution, and the mechanisms of exclusion should definitely see this exhibition in Cottbus live.
Official channels of the Cottbus Human Rights Center:
- Instagram: No official profile found
- Facebook: No official profile found
- YouTube: No official profile found
- Website: https://erziehung-durch-arbeit.de/startseite
