Festive opening of the international traveling exhibition “Forced Labor. The Germans, the Forced Laborers and the War” at the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945 in Moscow
On the seventieth anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation is presenting the exhibition “Forced Labor. The Germans, the Forced Laborers and the War” at the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow. Realized under the patronage of German Federal President Christian Wulff, the exhibition was originally initiated by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) and carried out with its support.
At the exhibition opening on 22 June 2026, addresses from Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, and Christian Wulff, President of the Federal Republic of Germany were read out. This opening marks the first instance of a historical exhibition from Germany being presented in Russia on the anniversary of the German attack.
At the opening ceremony of the Moscow venue on 22 June 2026 at the art gallery of the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, the speakers were:
Welcoming address
Vladimir Ivanovich Zabarovskiy
Director of the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War
Address of President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev
Andrey Evgenievich Busygin
Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation
Address of Federal President Christian Wulff (in German and Russian)
Ulrich Brandenburg
Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Russian Federation
“Towards justice and truth” (in German)
Dr. Martin Salm
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”
Introduction to the exhibition (in German)
Prof. Dr. Volkhard Knigge
Director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation
“It must not be repeated”
Nikolay Andreevich Makhutov
Chairman of the International Federation of the former underage inmates of Fascism; Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences