Haus der Geschichte BW, Stuttgart

»You and Us«

This exhibition, »You and Us - Integration of Displaced Persons in Baden-Württemberg«, chooses not to simply focus on the expulsion and flight of people. It takes the story of over 1.6 million expellees, and makes the process of their integration into South-West Germany a real experience for visitors.

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The visitor enters the exhibition through an outer glass wall that appears as a curtain of typography, listing the regions and cities from which over 12 million people were banished. A walkable map of Eastern and Central Europe depicts the origins of the displaced persons through hundreds of animated arrows marking the routes of their escape. The light of the projected arrows also skims across the visitors, involving them in the movement. A curved wall guides the visitor across the map towards Baden-Württemberg and an enormous, slowly rotating „banishment“ door, leading into the next room of the exhibition– with no way back.

Client

Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg

Location

Stuttgart, Germany

Year

04/2011

Photography

Andreas Keller, Lukas Roth

The main room, „Field of Encounter“, comprises 28 vitrines by which the visitor can ascertain 28 stories through various subject areas – living, work, family, church, society etc. Film and sound are also integrated as contemporary documents, and the shape of the vitrines is reminiscent of buildings in silhouette. The walls of the room are mirrored to extend the field of vitrines infinitely in all directions – these 28 stories serve as examples and were selected from thousands of destinies.

Before leaving the exhibition, the visitor is invited to spend time in the „Contemporary Witnesses Cinema“ showing interviews with displaced persons from the first, second and third generation considering how their identities have changed through integration. A contemporary focus on the subject of banishment and integration can be found in a separate gallery room. In this room, with a view over the parliament ofBaden-Württemberg and the pulsating city of Stuttgart, five different stories are introduced of people from all over the world who have lost their homes due to war or crisis and have subsequently found a new home in Baden-Württemberg.