"Education Through Work" at the Human Rights Center Cottbus: Experience Repressed GDR Destinies
Date and Time
Location
About this Event
Mood
Venue Type
Unseen Destinies Made Visible: "Education Through Work" in Cottbus
The traveling exhibition "Education Through Work: 'Asocials' as Enemies of the State in the GDR" explores a long-overlooked chapter of GDR history. At the Human Rights Center Cottbus, visitors encounter the life paths of individuals who were state-persecuted and criminalized due to alleged work-shyness, an unconventional lifestyle, their political stance, or an emigration request.
When Deviance Became a State Crime
The focal point of the exhibition is the so-called asocial paragraph 249 of the GDR Penal Code. Its broadly defined criteria allowed for the criminal prosecution of various forms of social deviance. Punks, prostitutes, applicants for emigration, and opposition figures came under the scrutiny of authorities, the judiciary, and state youth welfare services.
The exhibition illustrates how the ideal image of the socialist person became a guideline for state control. Homes, youth labor farms, compulsory measures, and imprisonment formed a system that aimed not at support but at discipline and exclusion.
Fourteen Biographies Against Forgetting
Through the portraits of fourteen depicted women and men, the exhibition makes the consequences of politically motivated criminalization comprehensible. Each biography gives faces, voices, and personal life paths to an abstract legal history. This creates a compelling consideration of historical documents and multimedia forms of mediation.
According to the Federal Archives, between 1969 and 1989, about 146,000 convictions were made under paragraph 249, with approximately 125,600 involving imprisonment. Other sources report more than 130,000 convictions for the period from 1968 to 1989. These figures highlight the magnitude of a repressive instrument, the effects of which extended beyond the period of confinement for many affected individuals.
Exhibition Atmosphere in the Former Prison
In the historical setting of the memorial site of Cottbus Prison, the exhibition combines with an authentic place of remembrance. The spatial effect, historical architecture, and concentrated presentation of the biographies create an intense exhibition atmosphere. The art experience here lies not in decorative aesthetics but in the immediate encounter with political history, institutional violence, and individual resilience.
The curation by exhibeo e. V. places the destinies within the history of the SED dictatorship and opens up perspectives for political and cultural education. The exhibition encourages critical engagement with language, state power, and social norms.
Why Visiting Today Remains Important
"Education Through Work" shows how quickly social attributions can become the basis for state persecution. The exhibition preserves the memory of people who were labeled as "asocial," stigmatized, and stripped of their social participation. An intense aesthetic experience and historical consideration await all who engage with GDR history, human rights, and the processing of political injustices.
A visit to the Human Rights Center Cottbus offers the opportunity to make repressed biographies visible and better understand the mechanisms of exclusion. This important exhibition project deserves attention – as a place of remembrance, education, and democratic responsibility.
Official Channels of exhibeo e. V.:
- Instagram: no official profile found
- Facebook: no official profile found
- YouTube: no official profile found
- Website: no official profile found
