Colloquium "Belgians before Berlin Panel Courts"
"Belgians before Berlin Penal Courts - Forced Labor, Control and Repression in the Reichshauptstadt during the Second World War" - Lecture on the conference at March 20, 2014
News from Mar 20, 2014
Location: Embassy of the Kingdom of Belgium, Jägerstraße 52-53, 10117 Berlin
Time: March 20, 2014, 09.00-18.00 Uhr
Women and men from the occupied countries of Western Europe were in large numbers deployed for forced labor in Berlin during the Second World War. Many of them went voluntarily - the coercive nature of the work frequently turned out not until later. West Europeans were for the most part accomodated in camps, but many also lived in private houses. Daily life in Berlin changed under the pressure of the bomb war. A growing crime rate was only one of many other problems, and the foreign workers in Berlin were perceived as part of this problem. Police and criminal justice attempted to handle the situation by increasing controls and introducing draconian punishments.
The German-Belgian colloquium will deal with these women and men, with their daily lives, the control strategies and the repression which they found themselves exposed to. Dr. Cord Pagenstecher, historian in the project "Forced Labor 1939-1945", will give a lecture on forced labor in Berlin during the Second World War.
The English-language Colloquium is organized by Prof. Dr. Michael Wildt and Dr. Herbert Reinke (Institute of History, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).