House stories #2 – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
House stories #2
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Sophien-Säle (historic spelling) in the former Handwerkervereinshaus were a place for education, culture, and political gatherings – closely connected to the history of workers’ movements and collective organizing. Following the ban of the association, its insolvency, and the forced auction of the building, this place was integrated into a system of violence and exploitation during the Nazi era: a forced labor camp was established in what are now the Sophiensæle. Many of those held there came from German-occupied regions of Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine.
House stories is a discussion format at Sophiensæle that takes the history of the building as a starting point and connects it to contemporary questions. In the second edition, we invite audiences to join a conversation with guests – about the history of forced labor in the Sophiensæle during the Nazi era, and about how these histories are remembered and engaged with today.
The event takes place in cooperation with Ukrainian Memory Week by Vitsche e.V., which emerged from the need of the Ukrainian community in Germany to create space for Ukrainian historical experiences within European memory culture—further intensified by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and including the remembrance of Ukrainians during the Second World War.
With: Lisa Schank, Vanessa Amoah Opoku, Vitsche e.V., Stefanie Hauser & Elias Capelle (Sophiensæle)
A production by Sophiensæle. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Lisa Schank is a historian and history educator with a focus on the history of National Socialism. She has worked for the Buchenwald Memorial and the Nazi Forced Labor Documentation Center (Dokumentationszentrum NS-Zwangsarbeit), among others. Her projects include the creation of a digital educational portal on Nazi forced labor, the development of an exhibition on Nazi forced labor in Villingen-Schwenningen as well as educational materials, texts and editing for various institutions. She is interested in the contemporary communication of the history of National Socialism and the question of how connections between National Socialism and other periods can be researched in a differentiated way and made visible in a way that is relevant to the present.
Vanessa Amoah Opoku is a German-Ghanaian interdisciplinary artist who explores history, digitality and marginalized narratives through mixed realities. She uses art, science and technology to challenge conventional notions of innovation and visions of the future. Her main artistic mediums include 3D scans, video, sculpture, performance and sound. Opoku has had solo exhibitions at EIGEN+ART Lab in Berlin, Synnika Frankfurt a. M. and HBS Research Center of the Times Museum Guangzhou. She has exhibited in institutions such as Belvedere 21 Vienna, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Fotomuseum Winterthur and Staatstheater Nürnberg. She was recently nominated for the S+T+ARTS Prize 2025 by the European Commission and Ars Electronica. In addition to her artistic practice, Opoku teaches at the HGK Basel FHNW, Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), among others. She lives and works in Berlin and Basel.