The exhibition is the first in Germany to present relics of and testimonies to the Soviet camp system collected by the “Memorial” human rights organization all over the former Soviet Union from the 1980s to the present.

The exhibition project seeks answers to the following question: How can the Gulag – a penal camp system already described by its contemporaries as the “quintessence” of Soviet tyranny – be described, how can it be comprehended in all of its dimensions? Voices of people who experienced it first-hand and biographies of former inmates accompany visitors on their exploration of this remote archipelago and create a panorama of the Soviet camp system. Objects from the “Memorial” holdings – for example a makeshift bread pouch, a tattered dress or a metal grave tag – make the everyday lives of the camp inmates tangible. The exhibition website presents a selection of significant objects and biographies.