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

The book on the exhibition in the Deutsches Historisches Museum

In the immediate postwar years, a previously overlooked but historically influential phenomenon appeared: The violence and annihilation resulting from the Second World War and occupation of large parts of Europe by National Socialist Germany became the object of exhibitions. From 1945 to 1948, many of these shows opened in the formerly occupied countries in Eastern and Western Europe and attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. The essays in this volume show how these first exhibitions on the recent chapter of violence were realised in London, Paris, Warsaw, Liberec and Bergen-Belsen, how the exhibitions told of the destruction, victims, resistance and collaboration, and how Jewish survivors, who often lacked acknowledgment in the national narratives, documented the Holocaust and made it known to the general public.

Companion volume to the exhibition in the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 24 May to 23 November 2025