»No one
was rightly
interned in a concentration camp.
The Disavowed
Nearly 80 years since the end of World War Two, there are still gaps in commemorative culture in Germany and Austria. The suffering of tens of thousands of women, men and teenagers deemed »community aliens« or »career criminals« is only gradually coming to light. These people were imprisoned in concentration camps or confined in institutions or psychiatric hospitals, and many of them were forcibly sterilised. It was not until 2020 that the German Parliament recognised the people concerned as victims of National Socialism.
Why were these people persecuted as »asocials« and »career criminals« at all? Who were they? Who participated in their persecution? Why did state and society refuse for so long to recognise them as victims? These and other questions are addressed in the travelling exhibition produced by the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial. The exhibition was opened in Berlin in October 2024.
This website presents work in progress and accompanies the exhibition.
News
Authorities were already using the term »workshy« prior to 1933. For the Nazis it was a derogatory term for the unemployed, whom they accused of not wanting to find work. These people received no assistance from the state; instead, the welfare authorities made them perform heavy manual labour and the police imprisoned many of them in concentration camps. In 1938 alone the police arrested more than 10,000 »workshy« people. The Nazis considered a »workshy« disposition to be hereditary and a danger to the »national community« (»Volksgemeinschaft«).