Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier believes that the fate of former GDR children must not be forgotten. The young people who were here were robbed of their youth and their dignity, Steinmeier said after a visit to the "Geschlossener Jugendwerkhof" memorial site in Torgau. "These children and young people were among the most vulnerable victims". Far too little is still known about their suffering.
Some GDR re-education homes acted like prisons
Since 1998, the memorial site has commemorated the prison-like conditions under which young people were to be re-educated into "socialist personalities" in Torgau during the GDR era. With its three-metre-high walls, watchtowers, guard dogs and barred windows, the "closed youth work yard" resembled a prison from the outside.
According to the memorial, 4,046 young people were incarcerated here between 1964 and 1989. Officially, it was the only closed residential facility in the GDR. In total, around 135,000 children and young people passed through such re-education facilities in the GDR between 1949 and 1989.
