On Displaying Violence: First Exhibitions on the Nazi Occupation in Europe, 1945–1948

With contributions by Kata Bohus, Mary Fulbrook, Peter Hallama, Christoph Kreutzmüller, Rachel E. Perry and Adam Przywara, among others

In the immediate post-war years, a phenomenon emerged that had previously gone largely unnoticed, but which had a formative impact on history: The violence and destruction caused by the Second World War and the occupation of large parts of Europe by National Socialist Germany became the subject of exhibitions. From 1945 to 1948, numerous exhibitions opened in the formerly occupied countries of Eastern and Western Europe, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. The essays in this volume show how the first exhibitions on the recent history of violence were realised in London, Paris, Warsaw, Liberec and Bergen-Belsen, how narratives of destruction, victims, resistance and collaboration emerged and how Jewish survivors, who found no place in these mostly national conceptions, documented the Holocaust and brought it to the public.

The German and English editions will be available in bookshops, in the DHM museum shop and online from 14 May 2025.

Published by: Raphael Gross and Agata Pietrasik in the name of the Deutsches Historisches Museum

Berlin 2025, 264 pages, Ch. Links Verlag

ISBN 978-3-96289-242-5

28,00€