nevertheless here!

During the National Socialist era, friendly and intimate relationships between Germans and prisoners of war or forced laborers were considered undesirable, and in some cases, strictly forbidden. Yet they are “nevertheless here”: children who were born of such relationships. Their stories remained taboo for decades. They have been barely studied by scholars and are hardly visible in public memory. The exhibition is dedicated to their life stories. During the Second World War, around 13 million prisoners of war and forced laborers were compelled to work in the German Reich. Both sides could face severe punishment for friendly or intimate contact with Germans. These ranged from prison sentences to confinement in a concentration camp and even the death penalty. Nevertheless, children were born of such relationships. For a long time, many children from forbidden relationships did not know that one parent had been a prisoner of war or forced laborer. Frequently, they were stigmatized as illegitimate children and as not conforming to social norms. Time and again, they were subjected to racist insults and discrimination. Many spent decades searching for an unknown parent—sometimes successfully.