Exhibition "Faces of Wismut"

The traveling exhibition "Faces of Wismut - The radiant everyday life, secrets and consequences of uranium mining in the GDR" begins where there is hardly anything left to see: where today there are local recreation areas or seemingly untouched nature, pits and slag heaps once towered into the sky. Developed jointly by teenagers and young adults from East Thuringia, the exhibition follows the history of GDR uranium mining: from the construction of the shafts, to the working and living realities of the Wismut families, to the controversies surrounding the ideology of progress, health and social integration. Zinnowitz became the central vacation resort for SDAG Wismut miners in the GDR from 1953. Traces of this time can still be found in the Baltic resort today.

The exhibition was created from 2021 to 2023 as a long-term participatory project by the Amthordurchgang e.V. memorial site in Gera. It was funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship in the "Youth Remembers" funding line and with funds from the Thuringian State Chancellery.