Holocaust Memorials - Monuments, Museums and Institutions in Commemoration of Nazi Victims

in detail

During the Nazi period Barth developed into a national center for armaments production with two important military sites. The history of the concentration camp subcamp and the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft I is an international history.

The memory of the victims of the Barth concentration camp, of the forced laborers and prisoners of war since has since 1945 been uneven and contradictory. Although the VVN made an effort to establish concrete commemoration, knowledge about the events in the concentration camp subcamp fell more and more to the periphery. Not until the early 1960s was research restarted and in 1966 a dignified memorial site was established. Each year memorial commemorations and other political marches take place. Public commemoration of the allied prisoners of war from Stalag Luft I first began when the first former prisoners of war from the USA returned to pay a visit in 1985.

With the end of the GDR the ideological obstacles of commemoration were overcome and contact was made to a number of survivors. But only a few attended the memorials ceremonies. The establishment of the Fördervereins Dokumentations- und Begegnungsstätte Barth e. V. in 1998 gave the commemorative work a new organizational form. Since 2000 a memorial and learning path exists on the grounds of the former concentration camp. In 2004 the association handed over the information columns on the former Stalag grounds and opened the new documentation center at Bleicherwall in 2005.