When the city of Berlin surrendered to the Red Army on May 2nd 1945, around 370.00 forced labourers were present in the city zone. POWs, concentration camp prisoners, and so called civil forced labourers. At the end of the war, most of them where still assigned to their work places or waiting inside the camps. The weeks of April and May 1945 were shaped by famine, despair, fear, resistance, and hope.
Many former forced labourers from western and southern European countries were able to return home already in summer 1945, alone or by allied repatriation transports. Other liberated forced labourers were trying to resist repatriation attempts. Particularly in the Soviet Union, returnees from Germany were suspected of treason and collaboration with the Germans.  

To this day, the history of the liberation of Nazi internment camps in Berlin is not extensively researched. We use the 75. anniversary in memory of the end of the war as an opportunity to focus on the stories of former forced labourers. How did they experience the last weeks of the war? How did their first contact to allied troops turn out? What happened to the internment camps after liberation?

On this website we will document temporary witness accounts, extracts from diaries, letters, and memories from the Berlin area.

Information can also be found on our Social Media channels
#Zwangslager1945 #75Befreiung

Do you have any further indications regarding this topic? Do you remember the dissolution of Nazi Forced Labour Camps in Berlin? We are glad to receive any information about former foced labourers in Berlin and the end oft he war 1945. Contemporary witnesses are encouraged to contact us:

Contact:
Niels Hölmer (ger/eng/it)
hoelmer(at)topographie.de
Telefon 030 / 63 90 288 14

Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit | Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Center
Britzer Straße 5 | 12439 Berlin
www.ns-zwangsarbeit.de