The Krumpuhler Weg forced labour camp was located at Billerbecker Weg 123 in the middle of a residential area in Berlin-Tegel from 1942 to 1945. It housed so-called Ostarbeiter, forced labourers from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as French and Italian prisoners of war, who had to live in inhumane conditions. They were forced to perform heavy manual labour in the armaments factories Alkett I and II (Altmärkische Kettenwerke) and Maget (Maschinen- und Gerätebau Tegel), both subsidiaries of Borsig, a large German armaments manufacturer.

Very little is known about the personal details of the people forced to live in the camp, apart from their nationalities. But in order to give the forced labourers a physical presence and a voice, the student project Silhouettes created ten fictional biographies, accompanied by a collection of quotes and informational material. The fictional biographies used short excerpts from interviews with contemporary witnesses that had previously been conducted at the Reinickendorf Museum. The aim of the project was to shed light on the subject of Nazi forced labour from a variety of perspectives. This included not only the fates of the forced labourers themselves, but also the position of the surrounding neighbourhood and camp guards, as well as factory workers and resistance fighters.

Twenty-four Year 9 students from the Humboldt Gymnasium in Berlin were introduced to the subject of Nazi forced labour at the memorial and history laboratory Historical Site Krumpuhler Weg, using methods of art and theatre pedagogy. Working in small groups, they developed individual biographical reports for each of their chosen characters and recorded their texts as audio plays. In order to give their characters not only a “voice” but also a “body”, the students created specific postures for each of their characters, which they then sprayed onto a fabric banner as coloured silhouettes.

The results were presented with the audio pieces in an open-air exhibition on the site of the former forced labour camp at the Historical Site Krumpuhler Weg in Reinickendorf.

The class was supported and assisted by cultural mediators Imke Küster (project leader), Henriette Panik and Claudia Wasow-Kania (Museum Reinickendorf), with financial support for the project being provided by the Berlin Cultural Education Project Fund in August and September 2020.

The presentation of the audio pieces with the silhouette images is permanently available to download from the Actionbound learning app.

Contact
Museum Reinickendorf
Alt-Hermsdorf 35, 13467 Berlin
030 902946460
museum@reinickendorf.berlin.de
www-museum-reinickendorf.de
Contact person: Claudia Wasow-Kania, Education and Mediation