Since the beginning of 2020, the Kahlaer Förderverein “Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Walpersberg” e.V. has been working closely with the Arolsen Archives, the world’s most comprehensive archive of the Nazi era.
Since 1993, privately and from 2003 as an association, the members have been researching and researching nationally and internationally on the history of the work and the clarification of the fates of the thousands of forced laborers employed in the former armament plant “REIMAHG” near Kahla/Grosseutersdorf. So far, more than 4,200 fates have been solved.
There are more than 30 million original documents in the archives of the Arolsen Archives. They are UNESCO’s world heritage and thus also an important source of knowledge and at the same time a reminder for today’s society.
The documents were collected for the clarification of fates. They contain information on victims of the Holocaust, prisoners of concentration camps, foreign forced laborers and survivors who tried to build a new life as displaced persons.
The travelling exhibition initiated by the Arolsen Archives informs about her project “StolenMemory”. The focus is on the story of personal belongings of ten former concentration camp inmates. The Arolsen Archives still contain more than 2,500 personal objects, so-called effects of former concentration camp inmates.
The exhibition will be presented in an extendable overseas container.
Within the framework of the good and close cooperation of the association with the Arolsen Archives, but above all of the importance of remembering, especially in our time, our association submitted the application to the Arolsen Archives to bring this unique travelling exhibition “StolenMemory” to Kahla. In Kahla, the only place in Thuringia, with the support of the city, this container exhibition will now be on display from 27 August to 10 September 2020 on the Gries, on the Saale.
