»The way to the Abyss. The year 1938«

The fourth joint exhibition of the Permanent Conference of the Heads of The Nazi Memorials in the Berlin area is dedicated to the profound events of 1938, the victims and the culture of remembrance associated with them on 14 panels. The accompanying Borschüre is available free of charge in German and English in the institutions of the Permanent Conference.

The year 1938 represents a peak in the National Socialist reign of terror since 1933: With the Anschluss of Austria in March and the smashing of Czechoslovakia in autumn, the German Reich began to destroy the border order established as a result of the First World War. The “Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich” in the summer, the deportation of thousands of Polish Jews in October and the state-organised violence around 9 November 1938 marked a new stage in National Socialist policy against Jews and people who were not to belong to the so-called Volksgemeinschaft. The following year, the Second World War began with the German attack on Poland on 1 September 1939.