lost childhood

The Museum of Juvenile Political Prisoners and Repressed Children

Since 2018, the Memorial Museum of Totalitarian Regimes «Territory of Terror» is working on creation of a branch – «The Museum of Juvenile Political Prisoners and Repressed Children». The aim of this project is to study the traumatic experiences of children (regardless of their social, ethnic or religious origin) who survived or did not survive during the German / Soviet occupation, to study the strategies of their survival, and also to show the child’s position in the totalitarian system, to research German and Soviet totalitarianism towards juvenile members of society.

 

The tasks of the future museum branch are:

 

-To study the psychological nature of the phenomenon of totalitarianism as the most dangerous tendency to govern the society, and the desire to complete (total) control over society and citizens;

 

– On the examples based on stories of «repressed childhood», to show humankind the cruelty and inhumanity of the totalitarian system; -To bestow honor on dignity of  teenagers and juveniles (boys and girls) who withstood this system, to honor the memory of innocents who suffered and paid with their childhood, health or lives.

 

The stories and photographs from family archives collected while working on realization of the museum’s oral history projects «Zhyva istoria» («Live History») and «#непочуті» («#unheard») will be served as the basis of the museum`s branch.