▲ The exhibition is centered around the story of Mykola Burlaka (1923–1978), a forced laborer from the village of Rozumivka in the Kirovohrad region, whose letters were acquired through an online auction in October 2022. In addition to Burlaka’s narrative, the exhibition sheds light on the plight of over 140 of his compatriots who also endured forced labor. Their experiences are reconstructed through a collection of photographs and documents sourced from the Rozumivka Village History Museum, Ukrainian and German archives, and family gatherings of descendants.

    The exhibition’s title draws from a quote found in the song “About Germany,” performed by former forced laborers from Rozumivka. On September 27, 2023, the exhibition debuted at the Rozumivka Village Cultural Center. Developed in collaboration with the local community and supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, the exhibition was made possible through funding from the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany.

The exhibition centers around the story of Hanna Pastukh (1922–1983), a forced laborer from the village of Tsykova in the Khmelnytskyi region. From 1942 to 1945, she endured forced labor in the city of Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia. In October 2022, her letters became available for purchase at an online auction, enabling further research in Ukrainian and German archives, as well as during a visit to Tsykova. The title of the exhibition features a quote from one of Anna’s letters addressed to her mother.

    The exhibition’s preview presentation took place on January 20, 2024, at the FC Schalke 04 Museum, followed by its official opening on January 22 at the Gelsenkirchen Scientific Park. It was created in collaboration with the Gelsenkirchen Institute for Urban Studies and the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, with funding from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The exhibition centers around the story of forced laborer Hanna Kovalenko (1927–2003), originally from the village of Puhalshchyna in the Poltava Region, and her friends who worked at various enterprises in the city of Furtwangen, Baden-Württemberg, from 1942 to 1945. In April 2022, Anna’s photo archive became available for purchase at an online auction, enabling the identification of many individuals depicted in the photos and the reconstruction of their biographies using documents from Ukrainian and German archives. The title of the exhibition features a quote from the inscription found on the back of one of the photos.

The opening of the exhibition took place on January 25, 2024, at the German Clock Museum in Furtwangen. It was created in collaboration with the museum team and the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, with funding from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

▲ We continued to research and present the photographic legacy of Ukrainian forced laborers in Nazi Germany. Throughout the year, the online archive was enriched with 109 photos acquired from online auctions. We deciphered the inscriptions on their backs, determined when and where they were taken, and in some cases identified the individuals depicted in the photos. As a result of research in Ukrainian and German archives, we were able to reconstruct their short biographies.

    The project was implemented with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung with funding from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

    * The project name reflects the original inscription “During the stay in Germany”, which was most often used on the backs of the photos by forced laborers in Nazi Germany.

▲ This project was implemented in cooperation with the Gestapokeller and Augustashacht Memorials (Germany), with the support of the International Charitable Humanitarian Organization for Children’s Rights, terre des hommes Deutschland e.V.

    In the summer of 2023, we gathered 28 young Ukrainians interested in the themes of war and memory to talk about public history, the culture of memory, and the ways of presenting our past and present. The workshop for those who live in Ukraine took place in Verkhovyna in the Carpathians, and for those who live in other European countries — in the Osnabrück area of Lower Saxony.

    Subsequently, the participants created their projects in various formats and techniques, which are collected in the virtual exhibition “‘Recall, Reflect, Retell’: life during the War in the Works of Ukrainian Youth”.

▲ During World War II, over 2 million people were deported for forced labor from occupied Ukraine to Nazi Germany, its allied territories, or other occupied regions, including many minors among them. Often, entire families with young children were taken. Among them was Maria Tymoshuk from Volyn. Now, with the full-scale Russian invasion, she, like hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainian women and men, finds herself facing a second war in her lifetime.

    We met with Maria to document her memories of her experiences. Subsequently, with the ‘Spilne’ team, these memories were adapted into a graphic story, now available in Ukrainian, English, German, and French.

▲ This is a story about the events of 1939–1945 within the present-day territories of Volyn, Rivne, and northern Ternopil regions and how extreme violence impacted the lives of the average residents of the region. The era of Soviet and Nazi repressions is presented from the perspective of people of different ethnic and social backgrounds, political beliefs, and individual experiences. Their experiences are reproduced based on photos and documents from Ukrainian and German archives, as well as oral history interviews recorded by our team during 2021-2023.

    The opening of the exhibition took place in the Rivne Regional Museum of Local History on February 14, 2024. The project is implemented in cooperation with the museum and the Rivne Regional Institute of Postgraduate Pedagogical Education with the support of the EVZ Foundation (Responsibility, Memory, Future).