Late Recognition
Local Remembrance of Nazi Forced Labour
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
For decades, the issue of forced labour played a subordinate role in German confrontation with the Nazi past. Only in the 1990s did it begin to make its way into the public consciousness. The impetus for this often came from interested laymen studying local history. In the Bavarian town of Affing, a seminar paper on the fate of a forced labourer led not only to the construction of a memorial, but also to the establishment of a German-Polish city partnership. To keep communal memory alive, however, ritual commemoration and contacts between the communities are not enough.
(Osteuropa 3/2016, pp. 51–58)