On the day after new year I visited the Documentation Centre on Nazi Forced Labour in the eastern part of Berlin, in the district of Schoeneweide.
The Centre is one of many memorials funded by the German government to record the abuses of the Nazi regime and honour its victims. It is housed in a former camp where 900 or more forced labourers lived between 1944 and 1945. They worked in nearby factories, forced to make armaments and other
things. They were brought from Poland, other countries in the east occupied by the Nazis, as well as from occupied countries in western Europe.
The camp was a series of low, stone-built, single-storey barracks with white-washed walls. The labourers had to live in cramped dormitories with poor hygiene and little protection from Allied bombing raids. Some
of the barracks are still standing and are accessible to visitors.
Visiting the Centre was a moving experience. The personal stories of individual forced labourers; the courage they showed to survive despite very harsh conditions including hunger and mistreatment; and the understanding I gathered of the scale of the brutality used by the Nazis in this, less well-known aspect of their regime’s work, all stay with me.
I visited the Centre as part of my research on worker priests. Dozens of French priests volunteered to be forced labourers, to accompany their tens of thousands of compatriots forced to come to Germany. The priests sought to provide spiritual support and often suffered in their mission. Many were arrested due to their
work, and at least five were murdered in concentration camps.
A short Nazi propaganda film on display, sticks in my memory after the visit. A German labourer, Gerhard, and a Polish forced labourer, Bronia, are discovered to be having a relationship. Such relations were banned
by the Nazis. The couple, each dressed in rags, are shown being publicly humiliated, their heads being shaven in the town square. Many locals are gathered around to watch. Gerhard was later jailed, then sent to the army. Bronia was hanged for her “crime”.
If you are in Berlin the Centre is worth a visit. Its website is here
The documentation centre, at dusk Foto: HW