80 years ago, the Second World War ended in Europe. For the fi rst time, this exhibition puts the focus on the experiences of forced labourers in Berlin. At the start of 1945, there were around 370,000 foreign civilian workers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates in the city. Their day-to-day lives were marked by hunger, air raids, violence and fi ghting, while the city increasingly became a battlefi eld. They were fi nally liberated at the end of April 1945 after years of exploitation and dehumanisation. 

But for many of those who were liberated, known as “Displaced Persons”, the end of the war brought new uncertainties. They often had to hold out in assembly camps, while their return home was delayed. By the Autumn of 1945, most of them had disappeared from the cityscape – and soon also from the collective memory of the Germans. Both at home and in Germany, they were denied recognition as victims of the Nazis for a very long time.