Project's exhibitions
‘From a Distant Land to Native Ukraine’. Letters from Gelsenkirchen of Forced Laborer Hanna Pastuch, 1942–1943
The exhibition centers around the story of Hanna Pastukh (1922–1983), a forced laborer from the village of Tsykov, Smotrytskyi district (now Kamianets-Podilskyi district) in the Khmelnytskyi region. From 1942 to 1945, she endured forced labor in the city of Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia. In October 2022, the NGO “After Silence” team managed to purchase her letters through an online auction and later researched additional information in Ukrainian and German archives, as well as during a visit to Tsykova. The exhibition title features a quote from one of Hanna’s letters addressed to her mother.
‘Where our Blooming Years Passed’: Ukrainian Forced Laborers in Furtwangen, 1942–1945
The exhibition centers around the story of forced laborer Hanna Kovalenko (1927–2003), from the village of Puhalshchyna in the Poltava Region, and her friends who between 1942 and 1945 worked at various enterprises in the city of Furtwangen, Baden-Württemberg. In April 2022, the NGO “After Silence” Team managed to purchase Anna’s photo archive through an online auction, identify many individuals depicted in the photos, and reconstruct their biographies using documents from Ukrainian and German archives. The exhibition title features a quote from an inscription on the back of one of these photographs.
‘Our Bitter Life in Germany’: The Fates of Forced Laborers from Rozumivka during the Second World War
The exhibition is centered around the story of Mykola Burlaka (1923–1978), a forced laborer from the village of Rozumivka, Oleksandrivskyi (now Kropyvnytskyi) district in the Kirovohrad region. In October 2022 the NGO “After Silence” Team managed to purchase his letters through an online auction. The exhibition highlights the experiences of over 140 of his fellow villagers who also endured forced labor. Their fates have been reconstructed through photographs and documents from the Museum of the History of Rozumivka, Ukrainian and German archives, and family collections of their descendants. The exhibition title features a quote from the song “About Germany,” performed by former forced laborers from Rozumivka.
We took photos in the evening when there was a thunderstorm*. Vernacular photography practices in Ukraine
The exhibition took place from December 9, 2022, to January 13, 2023, at the WBPiCAK Gallery in Poznań, Poland. It presents pieces by Ukrainian artists who focus on photography of daily life from the 20th and 21st centuries. In particular, the photographs of Ukrainian forced laborers in Nazi Germany from the collection of the NGO “After Silence”
