Missing female stories

In 1943, the German Labor Front (DAF) set up a so-called 'brothel barrack' in the Königsheide forest in the Berlin district of Treptow. Foreign women were forced into prostitution here. The National Socialists wanted to avoid sexual contact between foreign forced laborers or prisoners of war and German women.

In her installation, artist Dr. Birgit Szepanski addresses a gap in the culture of remembrance. The women who were forced to perform sex work remained silent about their experiences after the war. When other contemporary witnesses spoke about the 'B-Barrack', they often insinuated that the women had worked in the brothel voluntarily. The topic is virtually absent from the memory of Nazi forced labor. And there are no traces in the Königsheide either.Translated with DeepL