House of the Wannsee Conference

Permanent exhibit: "The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of the European Jews"
 

The main focus of the site is the Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942 and its significance for the process of planning the genocide of European Jews, as well as the involvement of the conference participants and the authorities they represented in the persecution and murder of the Jews. Four rooms are dedicated to these themes (rooms 7 to 10). Following an overview of the historical background to anti-Semitism and racism (room 2), the exhibition shows both the integration of Jews into German society achieved during the Weimar Republic and the rise of anti-Semitism at the time (room 3). It goes on to describe the propagandist concept of the Volksgemeinschaft (“national community”) after 1933, the exclusion and persecution of the German Jews but also their attempts towards self-assertion (room 4).

The former guest house of the SS Security Service (SD) is a site of perpetrators. For this reason, several theme-based rooms focus on a number of perpetrator groups, including the Ordnungspolizei (uniformed police) and Wehrmacht (rooms 5 and 6) as well as the civil administration in the occupied territories (room 12). There is also information about collaboration, a topic which has generated increased research since the 1990s (rooms 5, 6 and 11). The exhibition also deals with the frequently raised question as to how much the Germans knew about the genocide (for example in room 7). The process of deporting Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps, which has been reconstructed through regional history projects and memorial books, is outlined using three Länder (German states) as examples. The exhibition shows the establishment of the ghettos and the role they played in concentrating Jews prior to their murder. It illustrates how forced labour was organised in the ghettos, how day-to-day existence was dominated by hunger, sickness and death, the contrasting strategies adopted by the ghetto residents, and finally the liquidation of the ghettos (room 12). The continued process of persecution through the transit, concentration and death camps is also detailed. Conditions in the camps are described using documents produced by the perpetrators and from the perspective of the victims (rooms 11, 13 and 14).

The exhibition assesses the alternatives for action presented to the bystanders and the fight for survival of the victims. In order to at least give a representative face and name to the millions who were persecuted and murdered, four family biographies (presented together in room 1) are featured in the various theme-related rooms.

            ► to the online exhibit

 

 

Catalogue of the permanent exhibit:

 

The Wannsee Conference and the Genocide of the European Jews. Catalogue of the permanent exhibition.   Berlin 2009, 416 pages incl. DVD ISBN 978-3-9808517-8-7 / 3-9808517-8-8 26,00 EURO