UAH sets V-2 slave labor exhibit

Monday, February 15, 2010

By Lee Roop

Times Staff Writer lee.roop@htimes.com

Photos, victims' art, posters tell ofmissiles' creation

The University of Alabama in Huntsville will host an exhibit titled "Dora and the V-2: Slave labor in the space age" this month.

The historical and art exhibit explores the history of forced labor in the construction of V-2 missiles at the Dora concentration camp and Mittelwerk underground factory near Nordhausen, Germany, during World War II.

The exhibit will be in UAH's Salmon Library beginning Sunday through March 12. It is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation.

A section of the exhibit focuses on Wernher von Braun, saying that after World War II he and other German engineers tried to distance themselves from the use of slave labor.

"However, historians in the last 30 years have discovered written evidence linking the engineers (including von Braun and Arthur Rudolph) to forced labor," the exhibit states.

The exhibit, which focuses on the victims of V-2 production, features the first U.S. showing of work from two European museums: La Coupole, Historic and Remembrance Center in Saint-Omer, France, and the Mittlebau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial and Museum near Nordhausen.

From La Coupole, the exhibit features color photographs of V-2 forced labor as well as artwork from victims and survivors. From Mittelbau-Dora comes a traveling collection of posters telling the stories and experiences of people in the camp and factory.

Yves Le Maner, director of La Coupole, and Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Mittelbau-Dora memorial, will speak at the exhibit opening Feb. 21.

Author Michael Neufeld, author of books on the V-2 and von Braun, will speak Feb. 25.

.UAH sets V-2 slave labor exhibit - al.com