Ravensbrück Memorial Museum
EXHIBITION Place of Birth: Ravensbrück – Ingelore Prochnow
13. November - 10. May 2026 – 10:00 - 18:00 Uhr – all day
From 9 to 13 November 2026, the Ravensdruck art project will take place for the 13th time at the Ravensbrück Memorial Site. Over the course of five days, pupils from the Ernst-Litfaß-Schule Berlin (OSZ Media Design and Media Technology) will explore, through art, the life story of Ingelore Prochnow, who was born in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944. In the workshop, they will carry out every stage of the process, from conception and design through to the production of the printing plates, and on to the printing and presentation of the works. They will be supported in this by Ingelore Prochnow and their practical tutor, Ingo Grollmus.
The prints will then be exhibited in the Grand Foyer of the Ravensbrück Memorial Site between 13 November 2026 and 10 May 2027. The exhibition invites visitors to engage with Ingelore Prochnow’s life story and discover the pupils’ artistic works.
More than 900 children were born at the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, 600 of them between 1943 and 1945 alone. Most of the newborns lived for only a short time. They died as a result of deliberate neglect, malnutrition and the cold, or due to the utterly inadequate hygienic conditions. Ingelore Prochnow is one of the few who survived.
Ingelore Prochnow was born on 5 April 1944 at Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her mother was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in December 1943, aged barely 19 and five months pregnant. The reason given for her imprisonment was ‘forbidden association’, as she had entered into a relationship with a Polish forced labourer. Both survived until the liberation in 1945.
In the turmoil of the post-war period, they ended up in a DP (Displaced Persons) camp in Siegen, Westphalia. There, on New Year’s Eve 1947–48, Ingelore – by then aged four – was left behind by her mother. She grew up with adoptive parents in Lemgo and only learnt of the circumstances of her birth almost 40 years later. However, when she finally found her mother after a long search, she was met with rejection. Her father, the former Polish forced labourer Jan Gawrońsky – whose name she only discovered very late in life – had by then passed away.
The Ravensdruck project is made possible with the support of the Dr Hildegard Hansche Foundation and the International Friends of Ravensbrück e. V.
Venue
Großes Foyer
EINTRITT FREI
Täglich von 10 bis 18 Uhr
Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück
Straße der Nationen, 16798 Fürstenberg/Havel
