During World War II at least 13.5 million people were employed as forced labourers in Germany and across the territories occupied by the German Reich. Most came from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, the Baltic countries, France, Poland and Italy. Among them were 8.4 million civilians working for private companies and public agencies in industry, administration and agriculture. In addition, there were 4.6 million prisoners of war and 1.7 million concentration camp prisoners who were either subjected to forced labour in concentration or similar camps or were ‘rented out’ or sold by the SS. While there are numerous publications on forced labour in National Socialist Germany during World War II, this publication combines a historical account of events with the biographies and memories of former forced labourers from twenty-seven countries, offering a comparative international perspective.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Remembrance, Responsibility and Future
Foreword by the Board of Directors of the Foundation
Acknowledgements
PART I
Editors’ Introduction
PART II
Chapter 1. Reports from Germany on Forced and Slave Labour
Alexander von Plato
Chapter 2. Work, Repression and Death after the Spanish Civil War
Mercedes Vilanova
Chapter 3. Czechs as Forced and Slave Labourers during the Second World War
Šárka Jarská
Chapter 4. Slovak Republic (1939-1945)
Viola Jakschová
Chapter 5. ‘You can’t say it out loud. And you can’t forget’: Polish Experiences of Slave and Forced Labour for the ‘Third Reich’
Piotr Filipkowski and Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner
Chapter 6. The Fate of Polish Slave and Forced Labourers from
Łódź Ewa Czerwiakowski and Gisela Wenzel
Chapter 7. Interviews with Roma in Poland – A Report of My Experiences
Arthur Podgorski
Chapter 8. The French Experience: STO, a Memory to Collect, a History to Write
Anne-Marie Granet-Abisset
Chapter 9. The Experiences of Hungarian Slave and Forced Labourers
Éva Kovács
Chapter 10. ‘Mother, are the apples at home ripe yet?’: Slovenian Forced and Slave Labourers during the Second World War
Monika Kokalj Kočevar
Chapter 11. Of Silence and Remembrance: Forced Labour and the NDH, and the History of their Remembrance
Christian Schölzel
Chapter 12. ‘If you lose your freedom, you lose everything’: The Experiences and Memories of Serbian Forced Labourers
Barbara N. Wiesinger
Chapter 13. They Survived Two Wars: Bosnian Roma as Civil War Refugees in Germany
Birgit Mair
Chapter 14. Forced Labour in Bulgaria 1941-1944. Tracing the Memories
Ana Luleva
Chapter 15. Lithuania 1941-1944: Slave and Forced Labourers Remember
Rose Lerer Cohen
Chapter 16. Belarusian Forced Labourers: Types and Recruitment Methods
Alexander Dalhouski
Chapter 17. Forced and Slave Labour in Belarus: Experiences, Coping Strategies and Personal Accounts
Imke Hansen and Alesja Belanovich
Chapter 18. The Experience of Forced Labourers from Galician Ukraine
Tetyana Lapan
Chapter 19. Oral Histories of Former Ukrainian ‘Ostarbeiter: Preliminary Results of Analysis
Gelinada Grinchenko
Chapter 20. Oral Testimonies from Russia
Irina Scherbakowa
Chapter 21. The Experience of Citizens of the Former Soviet Union as Forced Labourers in Nazi Germany
Natalia Timofeyeva
Chapter 22. Presenting Life in Captivity. Oral Testimonies of Former Forced and Slave Labourers from St Petersburg and the Russian Northwest
Anna Reznikova
Chapter 23. Women’s Biographies and Women’s Memory of War
Olga Nikitina, Elena Rozhdestvenskaya and Victoria Semenova
Chapter 24. The Deportation of the Italians 1943-45
Doris Felsen and Viviana Frenkel
Chapter 25. Former Forced Labourers as Immigrants in Great Britain after 1945
Christoph Thonfeld
Chapter 26. Slave Labour and Shoah – A View from Israel
Margalit Bejarano and Amija Boasson
Chapter 27. International Slave and Forced Labour Documentation Project: United States, Atlanta, Georgia
Sara Ghitis and Ruth Weinberger
Chapter 28. Forced and Slave Labour in the Context of the Jewish Holocaust Experience
Dori Laub and Johanna Bodenstab
PART III.
Chapter 29. A Memorial for the Persecuted – Materials for Education and Science: The Compilation of Biographies of Former Slave and Forced Labourers
Almut Leh and Henriette Schlesinger
Chapter 30. ‘A moment of elation … and painful’: The Homecoming of Slave and Forced Labourers after the Second World War
Christoph Thonfeld
Chapter 31. Witnesses at the First Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt
Dagi Knellesen
Chapter 32. Revisiting Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors 25 Years Later
Dori Laub and Johanna Bodenstab
Chapter 33. ‘It Was a Modern Slavery’: First Results of the Documentation Project on Forced and Slave Labour
Alexander von Plato
Appendices
Appendix I: Interview Guidelines
Alexander von Plato
Appendix II: Timeline Forced Labour and Compensation
Joachim Riegel
Appendix III: Interview Partner
List of Contributors
Bibliography
Index
Sobre o autor
Christoph Thonfeld is a historian and language teacher and is currently Assistant Professor of German language and culture at Cheng Chi University in Taipei, Taiwan. He is also researching forced labourers’ memories of WW II in an internationally comparative perspective. He is co-editor of the periodical Werkstatt Geschichte.