"Memorial" will present an exhibition about "Ostarbayters"

On June 7, the international memorial* in Moscow will open an exhibition “taken memory” - a project dedicated to the citizens of the USSR, which were stolen to Germany during the Second World War, and the search for their descendants.

The official opening will begin at 19:00 and will be broadcast on the YouTube channel of the international memorial .

During the Second World War, from 3 to 5 million Soviet citizens were stolen from the occupied territories of the Soviet Union for forced labor in the Third Reich. In Nazi Germany, they received the stigma of the “Ostarbeters” by virtue of their non -Aryan - Slavic - origin, and went to the most difficult work in the Reich industry and agriculture. For violating numerous absurd rules, for attempts to escape from labor camps, the “Ostarbeters” were sent to concentration camps. When registering in concentration camps, they took away all personal things - memorable photos, rare jewelry, household items.

Decades after the end of World War II, the taken personal belongings were transferred from the museums of concentration camps to the archives of Arolzen . Since 2016, Arolzen archives began a campaign to return things to their legal heirs.

The “taken memory” is the stories of ten “Ostarbeters” and prisoners of concentration camps from the Soviet Union and the campaign to search for their descendants. The main goal of the exhibition is to find the heirs and return them the personal things of their relatives. The exhibition is posters with the names of immigrants from the Soviet Union, all the information known about them (very scarce) and images of their personal belongings. Two documentary cartoons are complemented by the exposition about what the witnesses themselves experienced and their families after the return of the memorality.

The "taken memory" is demonstrated in Russia for the first time. The exhibition was created by Arolzen archives in 2016 and has already managed to visit Germany, France, Poland and other European countries. During the European campaign, it was possible to find more than 500 owners of things. On the eve of June 22, the 80th anniversary of the Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union, the exhibition “taken away memory” of the International Memorial again draws attention to the fate of the civilian population who suffered from Nazism.

As part of the Russian exhibition, the organizers are looking for relatives of eight "Ostarbeters" and prisoners of concentration camps:

• Neonella Doboychina (date of birth - October 11, 1923)
• Alexandra Demyanenko (January 1, 1924)
• Anthony Gladilina (June 13, 1926/1927)
• Maria Naumova (November 7, 1923/1925)
• Olga Volkova (June 27, 1924)
• George Blagorodov (May 5, 1921)
• Mikhail Belyaev (year of birth is unknown)
• Censorship barbarians (January 23, 1924)

The International Memorial and Arolzen archives will be grateful for any information support, especially for the publication of the names of those wanted. More information can be obtained from the curator of the exhibition Evelina Rudenko ( rudenko@memo.ru , +7 985 043 8426).

The exhibition "taken memory" in the international memorial will last until August 15 .

The exhibition is supported by the Heinrich Bullya Foundation and the European Union

*On October 4, 2016, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation introduced an international memorial in the register of "non -profit organizations performing the function of a foreign agent"