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A mansion of labour
At first sight palatial redbrick facades and artistically adorned gables on buildings dotted around a grassy square are more reminiscent of an aristocratic residence than a coal mine. This was exactly one of the ideas behind the architecture.
Today the “mansion of labour” in the west of Dortmund is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and impressive testimonies to Germany’s industrial history. The engine house with its famous Jugendstil doorway is already an icon. But the museum’s outstanding industrial architecture is only one of many different attractive facets. The various sections of the exhibition will take you into a world of harsh working conditions, and the stories of the men and women who worked in coalmining during the 20th century will bring this vividly to life.
Guided tours in English are offered. They last 1.5 hours, cost 52 € plus admission and have to be booked in advance. English pamphlets and the English museum guide "The Zollern II/IV »model« colliery" are available. We also offer leaflets in French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Polish (please ask at the entry). Please contact the museum for further information. The restaurant and pub "Pferdestall" ("The Horsestable") provides fine food and drink for all occasions. All familiy or private parties take place here. Tel: +49 (0)231 6903236.
By car: Please follow the brown & white signs for "Route Industriekultur". Car parking for 150 vehicles and 3 bus spaces. Please note: car navigation systems should be set on "Rhader Weg" By public means of transportation: Line 43 Emschertalbahn Dortmund to Dorsten: www.nordwestbahn.de. Ten minutes walk from Dortmund-Bövinghausen station. Leave the station heading for the railway bridge, turn right after 10 metres into Merklinder Strasse, then diagonally left through the estate: Plutostrasse, Jupiterstrasse, cross Rhader Weg diagonally into Grubenweg. By bike: Bikecycle route R10 and R31 or the Emscher Park Bike-Route South.
Forced Labour. The Germans, the Forced Labourers and the War.
18 March to 30 September 2012
During World War II, forced labourers were exploited on almost every building site and farm, in every factory and even in private households in Germany. Over 20 million men, women and children from all over Europe had to perform forced labour in Germany and in the occupied territories as foreign forced labourers, prisoners of war or concentration camp prisoners. The ‘Forced Labour, the Forced Labourers and the War’ exhibition tells, for the first time, the full story of this crime and its ramifications after 1945. The international travelling exhibition of the ‘Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation’ will come to Dortmund next spring after the inauguration in the Jewish Museum in Berlin and a presentation in Moscow. This is the last German venue before the exhibition goes abroad. As from 18 March 2012, the Regional Authority of Westphalia-Lippe and Dortmund City Council will present the ‘Forced Labour’ exhibition at the ‘LWL Zollern Colliery (Zeche Zollern) Industrial Museum’ – a place where forced labourers were also exploited during World War II. “We are very proud of being able to get this high-calibre exhibition to come to Dortmund,” explained LWL’s Museum Director Dr. Ulrike Gilhaus.
The presented exhibits and photographs allow an insight into the racially defined relationship between the Germans and the forced labourers – with all scope of action available to the people. And they show that the forced labour was part of the racist social order of the Nazi state from the very start: The propagated ‘People’s Community’ (Volksgemeinschaft) and the forced labour of the excluded – both belonged together.
Over 60 representative case histories form the core of the exhibition. Like the exhibited documents and photographs, they are also the result of meticulous research in the archives of Europe, the USA, and Israel. In terms of content, these case histories range from the degrading work of the politically persecuted in Chemnitz to the murderous slave labour of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union and the daily life of a forced labourer on a farm in Austria. The chronologically structured exhibition establishes many connections to cities and industries of Westphalia and the Ruhr Region and refers to specific examples of forced labour in the Dortmund area. Lectures, excursions and other events will deepen the subject.
Forced Labour. The Germans, the Forced Labourers and the War.
Special exhibition by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, initiated and sponsored by the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation (EVZ)
www.ausstellung-zwangsarbeit.org