• Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Center
The barracks of the Berlin-Schöneweide forced labour camp were rediscovered in 1993. In 1944/1945, hundreds of forced labourers from France, Belgium and Italy were accommodated there. Two further barracks were used as a satellite camp for female prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The documentation centre, which was opened in 2006, informs in its various exhibitions about the history and the dimensions of forced labour in National Socialism.
Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 1943, Royal Air Force aerial photograph showing the site of the camp, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung
Berlin-Schöneweide, 1943, Royal Air Force aerial photograph showing the site of the camp, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung

Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2010, »Barrack 13», Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2010, »Barrack 13», Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
During the National Socialist period, several barracks and collective housing facilities were constructed in Berlin for forced labourers who were deployed by the »General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital«, Albert Speer. The so-called GBI camps were to accommodate forced labourers conducting construction work in remodelling Berlin to become the »World Capital Germania«. From 1943 on, the men and women who were incarcerated at the GBI camps increasingly had to work on building air raid protection and in arms factories as well as clearing away rubble in the streets after bombings.
At the time, the office of the General Building Inspector took over a large unused plot of land in Berlin-Schöneweide, planning to build housing for 5,000 forced labourers there. Since the Reich defence commissioner had forbidden building wooden barracks in August 1943 due to air raid protection regulations, the office of the General Building Inspector erected stone barracks. 13 barracks were completed by the end of the war. The first forced labourers arrived at GBI camp 75/76 in February 1944. A central supply barrack split the premises of the so-called »Italian camp« into two parts. Located in one part were barracks for about 500 Italian military internees, accommodated there were also forced labourers of other nationalities. The office of the General Building Inspector rented unoccupied beds to factories in the vicinity. At the end of February 1945, female prisoners of a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp were brought to two empty barracks in another part of the camp. Their previous accommodation - a boat shed on the banks of the Spree river - had been destroyed in an air raid. The women were forced to work under hazardous conditions at the Pertrix battery factory. They were guarded by female SS wardens at the barrack camp, making any contact with the other prisoners there impossible.
Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 1943, Royal Air Force aerial photograph showing the site of the camp, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung
Berlin-Schöneweide, 1943, Royal Air Force aerial photograph showing the site of the camp, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung

Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2010, »Barrack 13», Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2010, »Barrack 13», Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
In November 1944, there were about 440 Italian military internees in the GBI camp 75/76 as well as an unknown number of Belgians, Frenchmen and Poles. It is assumed that there were also Ukrainian forced labourers - so-called »Ostarbeiter« - in the camp. The SS brought 200 female forced labourers, for the most part of Polish nationality, to a part of the GBI camp which was used as a satellite concentration camp.
Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2009, Students speak with a former Ukrainian forced labourer, Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2009, Students speak with a former Ukrainian forced labourer, Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit

Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2009, Former camp premises, Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2009, Former camp premises, Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit, Hoffmann
The stone barracks of GBI camp 75/76 are the only remaining traces of the numerous forced labour camps in the area of Berlin to have remained almost completely intact. During the existence of the GDR, part of the building complex was home to offices and laboratories of the GDR vaccination institute. Another part housed workshops and a child care facility. The former GBI camp was only rediscovered in 1993 during the development of an industrial reclamation concept for the area. The former camp premises have been under landmark protection since 1995. In 2001, a support association was founded, and it has since played a major role in the creation of a documentation centre on the former camp premises. In 2004, the cultural committee of the Berlin Senate decided to establish a central forced labour memorial site for the region of Berlin and Brandenburg. The state of Berlin purchased the plot of land from the federal state and began renovating the buildings. The documentation centre was opened in 2006 and is administered by the Foundation Topography of Terror. Since August 2010 the well preserved »Barrack 13« is open to the public during guided tours.
In May 2013 the new permanent exhibition »Alltag Zwangsarbeit 1938-1945« (English: »Forced Labour in the Daily Round 1938 - 1945«) was opened. It aims at providing a comprehensive picture of the dimensions of the system of forced labour under National Socialism. The focus is on the fate of the approximately 8.4 million civilians from the occupied territories of Europe who were forced to work in Germany during the war: the circumstances under which they lived and worked, their treatment which differed according to their country of origin and not least the sexual exploitation women were often subject to. The last section of the exhibition deals with the historical legacy of forced labour in East and West Germany. The financial compensation of individual forced labourers by the German state and German companies began not until 2000.
Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2013, View of the permanent exhibition, Volker Kreidler
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2013, View of the permanent exhibition, Volker Kreidler

Image: Berlin-Schöneweide, 2013, View of the permanent exhibition, Volker Kreidler
Berlin-Schöneweide, 2013, View of the permanent exhibition, Volker Kreidler
Name
Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit
Address
Britzer Straße 5
12439 Berlin
Phone
+49 (0)30 6390 288 0
Fax
+49 (0)30 6390 288 29
Web
http://www.ns-zwangsarbeit.de
E-Mail
schoeneweide@topographie.de
Open
Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Visiting »Barrack 13« by appointment only
Possibilities
Guided tours, archive, thematic library, seminar rooms