The History of the Brandenburg Women's Relief Society
On 28th October 2010, the memorial's travelling exhibition on "The History of the Brandenburg Women's Relief" was opened in the historical headquarters of the Brandenburg Women's Relief Society (now the Evangelical Centre for Geriatric Medicine) in Potsdam's Weinbergstraße. In telling the stories both of the society and of the individuals connected with it, the exhibition shows how the Women's Relief, despite its predominantly conservative attitude towards women, adapted to social change and thereby brought forth some outstandingly successful women. Through the relief of the poor and the sick, adult education courses for women, maternal respite care and Bible study, the society made an important contribution to the emancipation of women in Brandenburg and Prussia.
It was in the seat of the Reichsfrauenhilfe (its Nazi-controlled successor at the same address in what was then Mirbachstraße) that the Soviet secret service ultimately set up the central remand prison for counterintelligence in 1945. In addition to the history of the society, the exhibition also explains the history of the later prison in Leistikowstraße. The exhibition was made possible by generous financial support from many donors. Exhibits were loaned by numerous private individuals as well as the Brandenburg Main State Archive, the Federal Archives, the Potsdam-Stralsund Sisterhood of the Evangelical Women's Relief, the Niederlausitz Museum in Luckau, and Falkensee Museum and Gallery, as well as Evangelical archives, libraries and institutions.
